Karen Francisco, The Journal Gazette
kfrancisco@jg.net
The $151 tax break that a Taylor Street resident received on her home is part of a $1.9 million shortfall that City Controller Pat Roller had to cover in putting together Fort Wayne's 2009 budget - a task that will grow even tougher with a lower tax cap next year.
The homeowner's tax break, on a home worth $837,900, is among the first afforded by Indiana's new circuit-breaker law. For 2008 taxes payable in 2009, the homestead circuit-breaker caps tax bills at 1.5 percent of a property's assessed value. It will be reduced to a 1 percent cap next year. Tax bills have a handy category to show the maximum tax that could be imposed over the 1.5 percent and 1 percent caps, although most homeowners will find their total bills fall far short of a credit.
Only 61 Allen County homeowners had bills that reached the 1.5 percent cap this year. All were high-end properties, ranging in value from a $1.9 million home in Aboite Township with a $2,392 tax break to a $301,000 home in Perry Township that netted a 31-cent credit.
Unlike circuit-breakers in other states, which typically require full payment of property taxes but provide a credit on state income taxes, Indiana's tax cap simply means the taxes won't be collected. The taxing units that would normally share in the revenues instead take a proportional loss.
The balance of winners and losers is why Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, voted no on the 2008 legislation creating the caps.
"Sixty-two percent of the kids in Fort Wayne Community Schools come from homes that qualify for a free- or reduced-price lunch," Moses said. "Those homes aren't the ones that are going to be getting tax breaks, but the kids' schools are going to lose out."