INDIANAPOLIS | The property tax caps Gov. Mitch Daniels has proposed would force cities, schools and other local government units in Lake County to grant an estimated $119 million in tax breaks to businesses, or nearly twice the bounty promised to homeowners.
One Northwest Indiana lawmaker says that staggering total only underscores the need to consider his push to revisit multimillion-dollar tax breaks the General Assembly extended five years ago to region steel mills and the BP Whiting Refinery.
State Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, said he plans to drop his effort to rescind the 2003 law, known as House Bill 1858. But this week he will ask a House committee to link the industrial tax breaks to company profits.
"I don't think the repeal would receive a majority vote in either chamber (of the Legislature), but I am going to try to amend the bill," Brown said. "In those good years they would not get the benefits of (House Bill) 1858, versus the lean years they would."
Brown said he has another amendment up his sleeve, but declined to detail its contents. On past occasions, Brown has publicly questioned why BP was given the same equipment depreciation tax breaks bestowed on what was then a struggling steel industry.
Brown said he expects his industrial tax proposal, House Bill 1309, to receive a hearing Wednesday or Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee. The influential panel was the center of attention last week, with Daniels making a rare visit to explain and defend his blueprint for reducing and reforming property taxes.
Easing residential tax bills is at the heart of the Republican governor's proposal, and efforts to rein in local government spending are a big part of the plan. His so-called circuit breaker would limit bills to 1 percent of assessed value for homeowners, 2 percent for landlords and 3 percent for business, which represents a tightening of existing tax caps set to take full effect in 2010.
Statewide, the governor's more stringent caps would force cities, counties, libraries, schools, townships and other taxing units to trim budgets by $599 million next year, according to the latest estimates from the Legislature's nonpartisan forecasting arm. The Legislative Services Agency forecasts only $7.4 million in cuts in Porter County, while Lake County would have to slash $252 million.
A month ago, Daniels insisted that there would be no "bailout" for Lake County, but he softened that stance last week, acknowledging the need for some sort of "workout" plan to ease local government into the icy fiscal waters.
"This is two sides of one coin. The more effect that the caps have, that's a direct reflection of how much taxpayers are being soaked." Daniels said. "But one important point is our bill didn't create this situation. It exists right now, under the caps that are in law. So I think some sort of a workout provision, and I'm not prescribing yet what it is, is probably necessary. But the day in which Lake County has to come to grips with what 85 taxing units and all the redundancy and excess and bloated payrolls has done to the taxpayer is here, with or without my bill."
