In Indiana, the property tax that is paid on a home, land, building, business machine, or product for sale is determined by the assessed value that the assessor assigns to the asset. Once the assessor value is determined the amount of property taxes paid on that value is determined by the tax rate for the city in which the property is located.

The tax rate is a very important part of the equation because the tax rate is determined by the budget the town officials believe is needed to run the city. Items that are needed to run a city vary, but most city rely on property taxes to provide the following items to the citizens of that city:

1. police
2. fire safety
3. library
4. school
5. health care department
6. trash pick up

Some cities have all of these items on the property taxes making the cost to run the city very high.

Now, that the basis of what is included in the property taxes has been discussed. Let's look at the changes due to re-assessment of property taxes in Indiana. In December 1998, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the assessment value that was being used was unconstitutional, and the state needed to convert to market value. Market value is thought to be more uniformed and satisfy the Supreme Court. However, the change would cause an unfair change in property taxes on the adjustment for the homeowner. The homeowner will cause an increase to 33% and the business owner taxes would decrease by 18%.

In an effort, to reduce the burden that the reassessment was having on the homeowner, the Indiana General Assembly develop a bill to protect the homeowner. The bill was to increase the sales tax to offset the property tax burden. However, the bill did not solve the entire problem, and now the state is considering an uniformed flat rate of one percent of assessed value for homeowner, two percent of assessed value for landlord or investor, and three percent of assessed value for business owners.