INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Democratic Party released the following statement from Chair Karen Tallian on the new additions made to Senate Bill 1 on April 7, 2025:

“What a mess. In typical end-of-session style, amendments are written into bills, bills are merged into each other, and nobody except a select few gets to know what is going on.”

“Senate Bill 1 was supposed to be “property tax relief”. Instead, in a typical “tax relief” shell game, the Governor will get some version of his property tax cut… but only by shifting the burden to local governments to enact local income taxes. The Republican legislature and governor get to claim Victory on tax cuts,  while the burden simply shifts to local counties to enact tax increases.  In typical fashion, they characterize that local cities and towns will have “the opportunity” to raise money locally. In fact, they will be forced to do that.”

“Oh, and while they are forcing the counties to take blame for an income tax increase, they are moving to eliminate business personal property tax over time. (Do note that SMALL businesses already have a $80,000 BPP exemption).

“The Republicans who control the state legislature for some years now have been trying without success for some years now to figure out how each successive Governor can “win” a tax decrease, and still manage to fund local government.

“Now, if that wasn’t a mess in itself, they have added another convoluted layer.

Senate Bill 518 moved over to the House, but was never heard in Committee. Instead, through a voluminous amendment that was just dumped into SB1, the House has now thrown into the mix the entire question of public school financing. After tax caps were placed into the Constitution, the only way for a school district to get additional funding is by referendum. Now,  referendum dollars will be required to be shared with certain charter schools. All this through a series of calculations that are nearly unintelligible. 

“All of this done in a last-minute change, without any prior fiscal analysis.  

‘Democrats have, for years, spoken out about the alternatives for tax equity, while still funding local government. This last-minute shotgun approach is simply more of the same that we hear every budget year: defunding local services, while not really giving working class Hoosiers any actual change in the tax burden.”