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Farmers will face property tax issues again in 2015

Heading into 2015, Indiana farmers will be facing some of the same challenges they’ve seen in recent years.

Indiana Farm Bureau president Don Villwock says farmers continue to fight the property tax issue within the state.  “Our members and farmers all across the state have had a 33 percent increase over the last three years,” he says.  “This coming year it will be a 16.5 percent increase and the next year an 18 percent increase.”

He tells Brownfield the organization is lobbying the legislature for at least a freeze and hopefully a modification to the formula long term. And with soybean and corn prices collapsing the property tax issue is a crisis for farmers.

Villwock says Farm Bureau is watching the annexation issue.  “All around the state cities and towns are trying to annex farmland into their properties,” he says.  “To get a bigger tax base to pay their bills.  We think farmers need some rules and regulations about how they are annexed – or if they are annexed at all.”

Villwock made his comments at the Indiana Farm Bureau annual meeting this past weekend.