Here's my assessment of reassessment.

When the new reassessment notices came out, I think a good many people were a little confused and with good reason.

Under the old system, property was assessed at somewhere around a third of market value.

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that system was unconstitutional and ordered the state to come up with a new system of assessing property more near true market value.

I have talked to several people about their reassessments.

One person, who figures his house is worth around $60,000, got a reassessment notice telling him it was worth $14,000.

Another, who would take $160,000 for his house if you wanted to buy it from him, was assessed at $50,000.

When I asked County Auditor Sue Ann Mitchell about that she said those were likely mistakes. She noted that when you assess every piece of property in the county, there are bound to be some mistakes made along the way.

A couple other people I talked to said their reassessment came out pretty close to what they perceive as actual market value.

A realtor in Syracuse e-mailed us noting that - based on what he's seen so far - property tax bills around Lake Wawasee will be running around five or six times higher than last year.

And Mitchell concedes that people who live on the water are really going to take a hit over reassessment.

Market values of property around lakes have gone up exponentially over the years. Bringing those assessments into the realm of market value has had some shocking results for lakefront property owners.

There's a person who bought a small house on a lake in the 1970s for around $130,000. Last year, the assessed valuation was around $200,000. This year it was assessed at $860,000.

So what does all this mean as far as your checkbook goes?

Well, no one really knows for sure yet, because the tax rates haven't been set.

But I can make a semi-educated guess.

According to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, based on the tax bills that have already been sent out, one can expect the tax rate to be 50 to 60 percent of last year's.

So if you think about it, you can get a general idea of what your tax bill might look like.

Let's go back to the Wawasee property owner. His assessed value went from $200,000 to $860,000. That's a 330 percent increase. If the tax rate stayed the same, his taxes would go up 330 percent, too.

But if the rate comes in at 50 percent of last year's, that property owner will suffer only a 165 percent increase.

I suppose one shouldn't use the word "only" when describing a 165 percent increase.

Now remember, people with very high-priced lakefront property are exceptional examples.

The vast majority of property owners will not see huge increases in their tax bills.

Let's say your assessment doubled from $50,000 to $100,000 or from $25,000 to $50,000 - which is a far more common situation - and the tax rate comes back at 50 percent.

In that case, you would be paying virtually the same amount of property tax under the new assessment as you did under the old system.

Again, the exceptions are people who live on the water.

Property owners have the option of appealing, but must prove that the assessment is not near actual market value.

It's also important to remember that our state operates under a frozen levy. The levy is the amount of property tax collected. The levy can not - that's can not - grow by more than 4.8 percent in any single year.

So it's not like there can be some big windfall of tax dollars. If lakefront property taxpayers are paying more, somebody else is paying less.

In this case, the "somebody elses" are commercial and industrial property.

The new reassessment formula shifts property tax burdens away from commercial and industrial property and onto agricultural land and homeowners.

Lawmakers for years have decried Indiana's almost punitive property taxing formulas for commercial and industrial as driving businesses away from the state.

To get a business to locate in Indiana, you have to give a package of tax abatements.

Now, the burden has shifted to homeowners and agriculture.

My best guess is that most homeowners, when it's all said and done, will see increases in the 10 to 20 percent range, but don't hold me to that.

At this point, it's only a guess. [[In-content Ad]]