Once again, it looks like tax bills for 2009 in Porter County are going to be going out behind schedule, perhaps not arriving until 2010.
Depending on who you listen to, they could be in mailboxes as early as August or as late as early next year, not that either alternative is particularly acceptable when they are supposed to arrive on a May and November cycle.
At least they did until 2003, when an Indiana Tax Court ruling changed the way property taxes are computed and threw the entire population into a collective tizzy.
Suddenly, the computations became too much for the elected officials to handle. Crucial tax information was provided late to the state. Tax rates were not returned to counties until late. Well, this ground has all been plowed before.
To correct the situation, Porter County has spent or will spend more than half a million dollars on computer software, not to mention hiring outside consultants to do the job that the voters elected their officials to do but which they apparently cannot without a little hand-holding.
And here we are, five years later and Porter County is lagging behind all but three of Indiana's 92 counties in the haste with which it processes its tax work. It's a good thing they don't have to answer to the IRS for this because I'm guessing they don't take a real shine to a "my computer ate my homework" kind of answer.
No, they only have to answer to Porter County voters. Who are the ones who are going to continue to pay when the county must borrow to make ends meet because no one sends their tax bills in on time because they did not get them on time.
Once upon a time, the idea was floated to send out estimated tax bills. Porter County Treasurer Jim Murphy has said that property owners can come in and pay an estimated amount in order to be able to claim the taxes as a deduction on their federal income tax form -- but many taxpayers use their bank to collect the tax money in escrow and that has opened a door on a lot of potential for error.
When this whole disaster began, it was easy to focus blame: A lawsuit by Lake County taxpayer Joe Gomeztagle, which said the former way of determining property taxes was unfair, was upheld by the state tax court and the old system was abolished.
You could blame either Gomeztagle or Judge Thomas Fisher for blowing up the old system before a new system was fully up and ready to run. But in 1997, Fisher told lawmakers the old system was unconstitutional and to draw up a new one, and they didn't. They waited until the judge ruled for Gomeztagle, and they had to start from scratch.
It is past time for the county and state to get their act together. There should have been a smoothly operating system ready to take over when the old system was dismantled, and there wasn't.
We've had plenty of time for legislators and elected officials at all levels of government to come up with a way to simply get tax bills out on time.
I have said it before -- people don't mind paying taxes if they get value in return.
They are right to mind paying for ineffectiveness and procrastination.
The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-4170.
