County Council Told They Weren’t Taxing Residents Enough

fall-property-taxes
By Emma Rausch
emma@thepaperofwabash.com

WABASH COUNTY – Taxes were the hot topic at the Wabash County Council meeting Monday night, April 24.
To start the meeting, Bill Ruppel, the county’s appointed lobbyist for state legislators in regards to the recent jail study, provided an update as to why state government refused to pass 62 tax bills this year.
“As we look, the bill and all tax bills relating to counties, none of them passed this year,” Ruppel said. “There were 62 filed and we wanted an amendment to House Bill 1142 and House Bill 1142 did not even get out of the Senate. So it was never heard and it died and it was not replaced with any other bill.”
However, state government did provide some insight into “what they think should be done,” he continued.
“Both the chairman of Ways and Means (Committee) and the chairman of the tax committee in the Senate felt that, one, since you now have 3.75 (percent tax rates) under LIT (Local Income Tax) for maximum, you now have to max out before you go before them,” Ruppel said. “Two, make sure you have your wheel tax and (motor vehicle) excise taxes in place. Three, cap out your property taxes.
“Then talk to us (the State) about doing a speciality tax.”
Following Ruppel’s comments, Darren Bates, of DataPitStop, reviewed the county’s annual Circuit Breaker credits and LIT report.
For five years, the State “has been suggesting” that counties max out their options, Bates said.
“Now it’s saying, ‘If you don’t max out everything you have, we don’t care,’” he added. “‘You haven’t done everything on a local level to max out taxes.’”
Wabash County has the second highest in incomes taxes in the state, according to Bates. However, the county is still losing money because it is not utilizing all of its taxation options, Bates explained.
“I’ve been dealing with nearly 10 years on this LOIT (Local Option Income Tax) since it’s came in, and you used to lose only about $200,000 in cash (when collecting taxes) but … and this is not guess work, this is a fact that you lost $172,000 two years ago,” he told the council. “Last year, you lost $459,000. This year, you did lose $1 million. That’s a fact.”
Read more about the Wabash County Council meeting and other stories in the May 3 edition of The Paper of Wabash County.

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