Livid about their property tax bills, droves of Marion County homeowners are questioning why nobody anticipated such steep hikes. The answer is simple: Indiana deliberately chose not to invest the tens of millions necessary for technology that could provide a better forecast.
Instead, the state relied on an aging patchwork of property tax software. Using it, officials can only guess whether assessed valuations of homes and businesses are correct. And accurately predicting the result of tax policy decisions is next to impossible.
Sometimes I think the greatest problem with this state is not its so-called conservatism but its penny-wise/pound-foolish thinking. Then, too, the space separating those concepts may not be so great.
Comments for this post
