According to Nikki Kelly of the Journal-Gazette
INDIANAPOLIS – An attempt to swap income tax revenue increases for property tax relief failed to receive a majority of votes Tuesday when the House Democratic caucus couldn’t persuade all of its 51 members to push the measure forward.
The 49 members of the Republican caucus refused to provide any help, still bristling because dozens of amendments they offered were turned away on party-line votes.
“I can’t believe that every one of those ideas was bad,” said Rep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale. “I think what you were shunning was any effort by the minority party to have a role in this legislation.
“Don’t ask me to vote for a bill that I didn’t get to have any say in.”
The tally was 49-48 The bill is not dead yet because it didn’t receive a constitutional majority of 51 votes to either pass it or defeat it. Two Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against the measure and three Republicans were absent.
It can be called again for another vote.
The property tax relief provided in House Bill 1007 would have been financed by a local income tax increase on individuals and corporations, and by having the state take over responsibility for growth of the family and children’s fund levy.
The initiative was the only significant property tax legislation moving this session and focused on reducing local government’s reliance on property taxes by giving them an additional income tax option.
“We’re trying to accomplish true property tax reform; something substantial and something long-term,” said Rep. Robert Kuzman, D-Crown Point, author of the bill. “There is something in it for everybody.”
Overall, the legislation would have allowed local government to raise local income tax rates by 1 percent. Sixty percent of the new revenue – or $732 million statewide in 2008 – would have gone to property tax relief. The remaining 40 percent – or about $487 million in 2008 – would have been available for new spending.
The local income tax option would have been tied to a 1 percent corporate income tax, the proceeds of which would have gone toward property tax relief as well.
Espich said the Democrats have provided no data on the effect of the bill to individual counties or average taxpayers.
But Espich told the group that statistics run by his fiscal staff show a median family making $65,000 a year and living in a $115,000 home would pay more in income taxes than they receive back in property tax savings.
“That is not substantial property tax relief and it gets worse as time goes by,” Espich said, noting one GOP friend told him over the weekend that he couldn’t afford any more of the property tax relief the legislature was promising.
The bill also contains nothing to address the hit property owners are expected to see this year, an average 14.5 percent increase in tax bills statewide.
One of the biggest contentions in the bill is a provision that would direct 25 percent of the new individual income tax revenue to a person’s county of employment.
