(This week’s civic education and engagement column from Danville’s The Republican newspaper.)
Local seniors tired of paying property taxes may be excited by Governor Braun’s recent suggestion that they should no longer have to pay them. If you’re preparing to celebrate, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
First, he lacks the power to make that happen. Only the General Assembly can change the property tax system, and they haven’t shown much of an appetite to make the Governor look better. Second, I’m pretty sure Governor Braun knows eliminating senior property taxes is as likely to happen as a snowstorm shutting down the Indiana State Fair. The same goes for his other recent suggestion that people who have paid off their mortgages shouldn’t be taxed, either.
How can I say that with such certainty? It’s simple: the state’s courts have already ruled that property taxation must be fair across the board. That’s how we got to the current system. Under the previous system, owners of newer homes paid substantially more than owners of older homes, even though both homes may have had identical market values. A Lake County homeowner filed suit, and the courts ruled that was illegal. The state developed the current market-based system to be more equitable.
Property taxes aren’t intended to punish homeowners or satisfy elected officials’ greed. They pay for the services those residents use every day. They pay for all those things local government does to create the quality of life that drew you here in the first place – and why you continue to choose to live here rather than somewhere else.
Senior citizens like me may not like to pay property taxes, but we benefit from the local services those taxes fund. You’ll often hear seniors complain about paying to fund schools when it’s been decades since their kids attended. Well, younger families pay a substantial amount of property taxes to cover the cost of ambulance service, which is disproportionately used by older folks. In Indiana, ambulance runs typically cost local fire departments upwards of $1,000. Medicare, which covers most seniors, typically reimburses only part of that – and Medicaid coughs up even less.
Many seniors either choose to move to Hendricks County – or to stay there – because of the abundance of parks and trails. Walk along any county trail and you’ll quickly notice gray-haired folks make up a substantial share of the people using them. Same with pickleball courts. Guess what pays for all those things?
Seniors who protest paying to educate other people’s kids often forget that earlier generations paid taxes to educate them. More important, a well-educated population benefits the entire community. Kids who grow up with a good education are far less likely to break into your home or require expensive social services.
Eliminating property taxes for seniors or mortgage-free homeowners is also fundamentally regressive, because it puts a greater burden on younger people who are working hard to pay their mortgages. I’m aware that some seniors truly struggle to make those tax payments, but not the vast majority. The Federal Reserve says Americans over age 55 control roughly 73% of the nation’s personal wealth. (They worked hard to earn it, but also benefited from economic conditions that weren’t available to today’s younger folks. For example, my college degree cost a tiny fraction of what today’s students pay.)
None of this means people aren’t legitimately frustrated by rising assessments and tax bills. But I’ll hazard another prediction: no matter what the General Assembly does to “reform” property taxes, Hoosiers are going to hate it and insist they’re being unfairly burdened – even though Indiana has some of the nation’s lowest property tax rates.
I do wish our Governor and other state elected officials had the courage to speak more openly and honestly about the realities of property taxes, instead of ducking the topic or blaming local officials for spending money to do exactly what state government tells them to do. The state folks know the real “problem” with property taxes is the system state government itself created and modified, not any purported overspending on the part of local officials and communities.