Our General Assembly must re-evaluate the tax increment financing authority of counties, cities, and towns.
The current law seemingly amounts to a limitless credit card for local authorities.
Tax increment financing (TIF), a scheme hatched in California during the 1950s, allows a county or city to use property tax collections to pay developers to build some grand project that benefits one and all…as the story goes.
Indiana created the laws allowing the scheme in 1975 and 1980.
A TIF scheme assumes increasing property values will generate enough incremental tax revenue to offset the cost of debt service on the bonds issued to finance the grand project.
The Indiana Gateway reports the statewide use of TIF, with over 70 schemes in Marion County for 2021.
For example, the incremental 2021 Marion County property tax revenue of $138 million did not cover the $159 million expense of the debt issued.