shopify analytics

Ok

By continuing your visit to this site, you accept the use of cookies. These ensure the smooth running of our services. Learn more.

07/26/2012

Tax Appeal, Anyone?

It seems like not too long ago that I had to play that exact same game - appealing our annual property assessment.

I personally believe that my primary residence should not be taxed at all, because I already paid taxes twice on that money. First, when I earn the money, I pay my income tax. Then, when I buy a house with the money, I pay sales tax.

Bottom line: nobody ever owns their property - we just rent it from the State.

In Indiana we thought we got a break of sorts when we voted a tax cap of 1% for residential property into our constitution, but soon after that we noticed that our government came up with a new creative way of raising tax revenues.

If the percentage can't go above 1%, they need to raise the value of our properties.

That's exactly what our assessor has been trying to do for the past two years! In-midst of a sluggish economy, continuously decreasing real estate sales prices, and an average inflation rate just under 3%, the value of our old house in an old neighborhood has supposedly, miraculously, increased by 7.22% over the past twelve months. 

So, here we go again - tax appeal. This time, though, I didn't have to think long about how to do it. I just repeated the same procedure as last year: going through the tax assessor's own database of property report cards I found several houses, comparable to ours, in our immediate neighborhood that had been sold within the past twelve month for a fair, realistic price - considerably lower than what our assessment said.

Our appeal was successful! The new value of our property is now only 1.12% higher than last year's.

I find it strange, though, that nobody else seems to appeal their property assessments. Do other people simply grumble, complain, and then just pay whatever? Tell me, do you appeal - and if you do, how do you go about it? 

 

10:58 Posted in Opinions | Permalink | Comments (2)

Comments

Hallo Karin,
eigentlich wollte ich ja zu Deinem Artikel "German Fest" etwas schreiben, aber da geht das nicht mehr. Ich hatte es schon einmal versucht, aber bei Deinem Blog ist das extrem schwierig, einen Kommentar loszuwerden. Mal sehen, ob das hier klappt.
Also zu "German Fest": wo war denn das, welches Du besucht hast? Und hast Du eine Ahnung, warum "German" hier in den USA immer gleichbedeutend mit "Bavarian" ist? Oder hast Du auf solchen Festen schon einmal etwas Anderes als Lederhosen und Dirndl gesehen? Ich jedenfalls noch nicht.
So, jetzt klicke ich mal auf "send" und sehe, was sich da so tut.
Liebe Grüße aus dem südlichen Texas,
Pit

Posted by: Pit | 07/29/2012

Hallo Pit,

ich habe meinen Blog so eingestellt, daß nach 4 Wochen die Kommentare zum Posting geschlossen werden. Ich möchte nicht, daß jemand auf ein "uraltes" Posting einen Kommentar abgeben kann :)

Das "Germanfest", über das ich da geschrieben habe, ist das an meinem Wohnort, Fort Wayne.

Warum die "Amis" meistens Deutschland=Bayern denken, weiß ich nicht. Vielleicht aus demselben Grund, warum viele "Krauts" USA=Texas denken ?

Herzliche Grüße aus Midwest

Karin

Posted by: Karin | 07/30/2012

The comments are closed.