News From Terre Haute, Indiana

Local & Bistate

February 23, 2012

Vigo hoping to avoid sending out provisional property tax bills

TERRE HAUTE — A Vigo County official is closely monitoring the progress of the county’s property tax billing data in hopes the county can avoid sending out provisional property tax bills.

Vigo County Auditor Tim Seprodi said his office is waiting on approval of a preliminary budget order, called a “1782 notice” from the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance. Once that notice is received, taxing units such as the county public library, the county and city of Terre Haute have 10 days to request any budget changes.

So far, 62 of the state’s 92 counties have received that notice, according to the state.

Seprodi has until March 15  to deliver to the state and the county treasurer a certified copy of an abstract of the property assessments, taxes, deductions and exemptions for taxes payable this year in each taxing unit in the county.

If a tax billing abstract is delivered after April 1, then under a law passed by the 2010 Indiana General Assembly, the county treasurer is to issue provisional tax bills. Tax bills must be in the mail by April 25 with property tax bills due May 10.

“The trouble with provisional bills is that the correct property tax bill still has to be sent out,” Seprodi said. “People who have paid their taxes based on the provisional bill may still owe more or they may have overpaid, and would have a refund coming. A provisional bill is nothing but an estimate,” Seprodi said.

In addition, provisional bills would double the cost of mailing out tax bills, the auditor said.

“We still have time to get this done,” Seprodi said.

He said Vigo County has never mailed provisional bills, something the auditor hopes never happens. However, counties were never previously required by law to mail provisional tax bills out to meet a May 10 deadline.

The law was passed, Seprodi said, in an attempt to return tax assessments and property tax bills to May and November due dates. Tax due dates statewide were well off that schedule from 2007 through 2009.

Spring property tax bills in 2007 and 2009 were due in July in Vigo County, while the spring tax bill in 2008 was due in September. Those bills were late because of statewide changes in assessment requirements such as property tax caps and trending property to market value based on home sales in a neighborhood.

Reassessment information was also late getting to the auditor’s office this year, with sales disclosure information about three months late and assessed values about four months late.

County Assessor Debbie Lewis said one major problem for her was an inability to immediately replace a sales disclosure deputy assessor who left in August 2010 as part of a county buy-out plan.

The assessor was allowed to refill that position in January 2011, but the position remained vacant until the end of March 2011, which caused a delay in obtaining a sales disclosure study.

Lewis said property assessments for this year for taxes payable in 2013 will likely not meet a state deadline of March 1; however, that work is about 97 percent complete, Lewis said.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.

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