THE DANIELS TAX PLAN
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels tonight unveiled his plan to reduce Hoosiers’ property taxes by an average of 35-percent in 2008. In a live broadcast tonight Daniels said a one-percent cap on residential taxes and a one percent increase in the state sales tax would help provide Hoosiers with more than three billion dollars in tax relief. The state would also keep more than $2 billion in property tax replacement credits that it gives to local governments to subsidize property taxes.
Daniels said he wanted to eliminate property taxes but there was no way the plan would work. He also looked at increasing the income tax, expanding the sales tax to services and levying a real estate transfer fee, but none of those were feasible.
Daniels’ plan also has the state picking up the costs of child welfare and school operating costs. Local boards would also be created to approve all local spending projects and a referendum would be needed for some building projects. It would also replace county and township asessors with a single assessor per county who would be appointed by the county council and have to meet certain professional qualifications.
The two Democratic candidates for Governor threw some criticism at Daniels earlier today, both Jim Shellinger and Jill Long Thompson said the tax crisis was one of the Governor’s own making because his Department of Local Government and Finance approved the assessments which led to the high tax bills.
The Governor says it unacceptable that citizens would lose their homes because of property taxes. I have to give Mitch credit. For all grief that the property tax issue has caused this plan, at least to start, addresses two main issues, increasing taxes and capping spending.
Now comes the fun part; the Legislature and the public. Here we go!
