By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz
Hoosiers with farmland, rental properties and vacation homes won new benefits under recent law, tax expert says.
Recent changes to Indiana’s property tax system will likely cut bills for most Hoosier homeowners, a new analysis has found.
But owners of pricey houses are expected to get bigger breaks, while those with low-valued dwellings may pay more, according to an Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute report released Friday.
Its author, Indiana tax expert Larry DeBoer, said Gov. Mike Braun’s hallmark tax law may squash growth in assessed value statewide through 2031, when key changes take full effect.
Chief among them is the homestead standard deduction, which Senate Enrolled Act 1 phases out by 2031. The fixed deduction lops $48,000 off the taxable value of a primary residence.
“If you’ve got a half-million-dollar house — you got a million-dollar house — $48,000 is nothing,” DeBoer said. “If you’ve got an $80,000 house, $48,000 is very significant.”
DeBoer, an emeritus agricultural economics professor at Purdue University, presented his results Friday at the Indiana Farm Bureau’s headquarters in Indianapolis.
The supplemental deduction, however, will rise from its current 37.5% to a whopping 66.7% by 2031. Because it’s a percentage, homeowners will save less on cheap homes than pricey ones.
The breakeven point — at which the two policies yield the same taxable value — is a home worth $102,740, per DeBoer. He estimated the average in Indiana at $234,500.
Counties with high homestead values, particularly Boone and Hamilton, will take harder hits to their tax bases, he said.
If Senate Enrolled Act 1 restricts assessed value growth but levies — the total governments can collect — rise, tax rates will also creep higher. DeBoer calculated that most property will hit the property tax caps at a rate of $3 per $100 in assessed value.
Homestead property owners get a circuit breaker credit on the amount of property taxes over 1% of assessed value. Many primary residences will likely reach the caps by 2031, according to the analysis. Property tax bills for those houses will be higher than now, but lower than they would’ve been without the law.
DoBoer joked that when Hoosiers complain bills went up, local officials can reply, “‘Ah, had we not changed the policy, it would have gone up even more!’ And the taxpayer will be satisfied.”
“Rueful laughter, right?” DeBoer said. Under his projections, it “really is a tax reduction … for the average homeowner, but the average homeowner is not going to believe it!”
But, for those not at the caps? Pricey homes are expected to carry smaller increases in their bills — or even slight drops. Low-value homes could see double-digit percentage hikes, per the report.
Also, beginning in 2026, a new supplemental tax credit will apply after the caps, taking off 10%, or up to $300.
More changes
Property types that hit the caps at 2% of assessed value get new breaks under Senate Enrolled Act 1 — “the first deduction that those folks have ever really gotten,” DeBoer said.
Non-homestead residential, like apartment buildings or vacation houses, falls under that category. So does farmland.
The new deduction phases into 33.4% by 2031.
DeBoer estimated that, if gross assessed value for non-homestead residential rises 5% annually through 2031, the net assessed value would fall each year over that time period.
Farmland net assessed value is also projected to fall most years, and. Under DeBoer’s assumptions, the net would be 33.4% lower in 2031 than it is in 2025.
Senate Enrolled Act 1 also raised the business personal property exemption from $80,000 to $2 million. DeBoer said that will impact small and medium-sized firms more, since larger ones with more property will continue paying as before.
Counties with a high share of business personal property will see lower losses from the exemption, like rural counties hosting large electric utility installations, according to the analysis.
The law also ditches a 30% floor on those property assessments after 2025. DeBoer predicted little effect in the short term, higher assessed values in the medium term and lower assessed values in the long run, once the business personal property purchased before 2026 has been retired.
But there could be loopholes.
One attendee asked what happens if, when a company purchases $2 million worth of equipment, it does so under a new entity.
“One of the goals of property tax policies is to create a neutral system that does not influence business decision-making,” DeBoer replied, to laughter. “And I suspect they’ve created something that (could) …”
“Obviously, the big ones aren’t going to be able to divide themselves up into little, $2 million segments, but a medium-sized business, one could manage it,” he continued. “… Accountants and lawyers are going to earn their money.”
Business real property gets no new deductions.
“Taxes in SEA 1 are shifting to big businesses with lots of personal property, and to rural homeowners with very low value homes,” DeBoer said. “It’s an interesting policy mix.”
