Northwest Indiana (Lake County) Property Tax

[Vaibhav Puranik]

Hi all,

I was analyzing some properties in NWI. The question I was trying to answer is what's the property tax rate for the region (Lake county). Here are 5 properties from Merrillville. You can see that the tax rate varies from 0.84% to 2.72%. It's an effective tax rates since the original tax rate could be lower and additional cess and city charges could make it higher. But all the properties below are from one city, hence I am expecting them to be the same for all of them. This variation in the data doesn't make sense to me. Can someone help me understand why there is big variation in the property tax rates? Shouldn't the property tax rates be the same % of the assessed value if they are all from the same city and county?

Address	Tax Year	Taxes	Assessment	Tax Rate	Data Source
5330 Tyler St, Merrillville, IN 46410	2018	$2138	$91,800	2.3%	Zillow
51 Deerpath Rd, Merrillville, IN 46410	2018	$1509	$102,100	1.48%	Zillow
7817 Whitcomb St, Merrillville, IN 46410	2018	$914 (Realtor.com)	$108,100	0.84%	Zillow
6252 Johnson St, Merrillville, IN 46410	2018	$3277	$120,300	2.72%	Zillow
505 E 53rd Ct, Merrillville, IN 46410	2018	$1897	$102,600	1.85%	Zillow

[Adrien C.]

Problem 1 is your source of data. First of all, it's dated. 2020 taxes are out so that data is a few years behind. Second, it is using the amount owed as the tax amount and 51 Deer path is the perfect example of the error. The taxes are $1070 which is 1%. But the property was a payment behind so the amount due was $1509 which is what Zillow showed. Taxes on owner occupants are capped at 1% of the assessed value but they get the deductions to reduce the taxable amount. Non owner occupant are capped at 2% and they get no deductions. However, there are 2 additional groups of taxes added on top of that- the voter approved referendums and lets just call it other fees. These other fees are paid to the sewer companies and an entity to maintain a river where storm water drains. Merrillville has a lot of these extra fees on properties while other cities only have the river fee. Currently Merrillville does not have any voter approved stuff. The owner occs should be closer to 1% because the reduced tax rate from deductions is really lost with the sewer fees. The absentee properties are probably in the 2.3-2.5%.