And how much in untaxed for-profit property?

Just got around to reading Sunday’s Gannett Star (we were in Cleveland for the weekend), and I see that the headline is “$2.7 billion in property untaxed in Marion County.”
I was just beginning to think that the Gannett Star had its priorities straight for a change when I read the sub-head: “Soaring tax bills spark new debate over whether state has been too generous with exemptions for nonprofits.”
Silly me. No, as usual, the Gannett Star has its head up its ass.
Shall we start by mentioning the millions of dollars in tax abatements that the Peterson administration has handed out to for-profits for the past eight years?
Shall we add the $2 billion in debt we’ve guaranteed for the Colts to have a place to play football (and to put money in their pockets every time something is scheduled in the stadium or the convention center, even if not football-related)?
OK; I’ll agree that it’s sort of gauche how the “non-profit” hospitals in our fair city have gilded the lily over the past decade by embarking on a seemingly never-ending construction spree. But then I look at the list they provide on http://indystar.com/property and what do I see? A subhead proclaiming “More than 1,600 churches tax-exempt.”
Well, yeah. That’s the law. And most of those 1,600 churches probably barely get along, money-wise — they aren’t all mega-churches like the East 91st Street Christian Church, or the 2nd Presbyterian Church (just two that I happen to be aware of).
Wanna see one of the properties I’m associated with?
http://www.indystar.com/data/property/marion_exempt07.shtml?appSession=68042840405496&RecordID=9315&PageID=3&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=2&CPIsortType=&CPIorderBy=
That sounds like a lot of property tax, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact, we screwed up one year and didn’t get our tax exemption paperwork in on time, and we had to pay those taxes for two years. I assure you that it would cripple us and force us to sell the building if we had to pay those taxes every year.
On top of that, we own a piece of property in the middle of Broad Ripple that we pay a couple of grand in property taxes on every year because it’s a rental that provides most of our income. So we don’t completely escape the tax man.
Here’s another one for you:
http://www.indystar.com/data/property/marion_exempt07.shtml?appSession=62842841261951&RecordID=7439&PageID=3&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=1&CPIsortType=&CPIorderBy=
I’m on the board that runs this one. And again…I assure you that if we had to pay those taxes, the building would have to be sold.
We’re not upscale like the hospitals that are doing billions of dollars worth of business every year. We just live on people’s dues and assessments…and I guarantee you that the amount involved is peanuts compared to what the hospitals take in, or what the Colts take in, or what the city has criminally given away to hotels and other businesses in exchange for them locating here.
Before you start pecking away at nonprofits, folks, you’d better take a much closer look at the for-profits that also don’t pay property taxes. When you wonder why the IPS schools or the IMCPLibrary need more property tax money, it might be educational to take a look at how much for-profit property in Center Township has been exempted by abatements by the Peterson admininstration.
It would certainly be nice if the “crusading” Gannett Star would write a story about that.