Senate Bill 436 is scheduled for a Tax & Fiscal Policy committee hearing on Tuesday, February 17th sometime after 8:30 AM in Room 431 of the Senate offices. As you may recall, SB 436 is an alternate state and local taxation bill that apparently is intended to replace SB 405. Unfortunately, SB 436 does not appear to directly address the situation of property being reclassified from “agricultural” to “excess residential” in any way besides “recommending” that a committee be formed to address the issue “sometime” in 2015.
In fact, SB 436 includes pretty narrow conditions for determining whether property is “agricultural” (it must be enrolled in a handful of federal or state agricultural programs):
SECTION 6. IC 6-1.1-4-13, AS AMENDED BY P.L.85-2014,
24 SECTION 1, IS AMENDED TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE 25 MARCH 1, 2015 (RETROACTIVE)]: Sec. 13. (a) In assessing or reassessing land, the land shall be assessed as agricultural land only when it is devoted to agricultural use.
(b) For purposes of this section, and in addition to any other
land considered devoted to agricultural use, any:(1) land enrolled in:
(A) a land conservation or reserve program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture;
(B) a land conservation program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency; or
(C) a conservation reserve program or agricultural easement program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Conservation Service;
(2) land enrolled in the department of natural resource’s classified forest and wildlands program (or any similar or successor program); or
(3) land classified in the category of other agriculture use, as
provided in the department of local government finance’s real
property assessment guidelines; is considered to be devoted to agricultural use.
This language specifically excludes land used for horse pasture or other uses typically seen as “agricultural” unless the property is enrolled in one of the listed federal or state programs. This also does not address the current policy of reclassifying “agricultural” property in a flood plain or location otherwise unusable as residential property from being reclassified as “excess residential”.
It is my belief that any legislation addressing the reclassification of “agricultural” property to “excess residential” needs to include language specifically stating that if the use of the land has not changed that the property may not be reclassified. Unless this language is included, no Indiana property owner can be safe from being subjected to huge property tax increases with little to no warning.
If you are affected by the reclassification of “agricultural” property to “excess residential” you are urged to attend the committee hearing on Tuesday. It is not known whether public comment will be allowed, but a large presence of Indiana landowners concerned about this topic will send a message to the legislature that the issue needs to be addressed. If you can’t make the committee meeting then call or email your state senator as well as Senator Horseman (sponsor of SB 436) to let them know about your concerns.
