Capital Comments

How do we know if a recession has started?  Sometimes it’s obvious.  In March 2020 during the pandemic emergency, weekly

Closeout day in the Indiana State House is near and dear to the number crunchers among us.  That’s the day the

Ag economist, Larry DeBoer, breaks down the ups and down of Indiana's property tax policy.

Purdue agricultural economist, Larry Deboer, posits what could happen to Social Security in this episode of Capital Comments.

It was printed in bold letters on the front of the envelope. “Open Immediately. Property Tax Notice Enclosed.” It was the annual property tax bill on my house! I remembered last year:  a jump in my tax bill of 31 percent. 

I tore open the envelope and found the page of numbers showing how my tax bill was calculated. The taxable assessed value of my home went up only 3 percent this year. Last year the increase was 35 percent. My tax rate went down by almost 5 percent. The tax bill is the assessed value times the rate. If my home value went up 3, but my tax rate went down 5, my tax bill should decrease by about 2 percent, right? 

Let’s think about the economy in the simplest possible way. People use tools to make goods and services, which other people buy. Gross domestic product is our measure of the value of goods and services. It grew 2.5 percent above inflation in 2023. We can use the simple view of the economy to figure out why GDP grew this much, and what will make it grow in the future. 

Last year Indiana homeowners were hit with property tax bill increases averaging 17 percent, an extraordinary increase. Will it happen again in 2024? Let’s compare 2023 to what we know about 2024 so far, and take a guess.

The memo was posted at the end of December, on the

Consumer price index Inflation ran at 2.1 percent per

Since then inflation has come down a lot. As of November 2023, prices were 3.1 percent higher than a year before. That’s good

The second installment for 2023 property taxes was due earlier this month. If you’re a homeowner, either you sent a check to your county treasurer or your bank paid the tax out of escrow. Homeowner tax bills were especially painful in 2023. Statewide average homestead tax bills went up 17 percent over 2022, a much bigger increase than in years past. So we wonder, now that 2023 is done, what will happen to tax bills in 2024?