INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Although Gov. Mitch Daniels offered a plan to permanently restructure Indiana’s property tax system recently, the Indiana Farm Bureau (IFB) is not jumping on the bandwagon.

IFB President Don Villwock hosted a press conference last week to outline the farm group’s alternative plan. While IFB is open to some compromise regarding property taxes, Villwock said there are a handful of principles that any fair tax reform bill should include. “We recognize that at the end of the day, the legislature will probably craft a hybrid that contains elements from several plans,” he said. “We feel our plan would provide significant, long-term relief for all Indiana property taxes.”

Those principles include:

•Avoid preferential relief that unfairly shifts the property tax burden.

•Eliminate entire property tax levies to provide relief for all taxpayers.

•Replace levies with broad-based, statewide revenue streams.

•Align each state revenue stream with the services and programs it controls.

The Daniels administration’s plan caps property taxes at 1 percent of a home’s assessed value. The plan also expands the homestead deduction by an additional 35 percent of a property’s assessed value, after the standard deduction is taken.

Villwock and the IFB believe Daniels’ plan is unfairly weighted toward homeowners. Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman recently said, “farmers who are homeowners pay an average of 40 percent of their property taxes on farmhouses.”

IFB claims that the plan is slanted toward homeowners because they make up the majority of voters in Indiana – while there are relatively few farmers.

“We’re not here to point fingers at anyone,” Villwock said. “We just want to keep the debate going. We want the best bill possible to get overall relief.”

Villwock said that there are many voices engaged in this debate, and many are working against what IFB is promoting.

The Indiana Assoc. of Realtors released a statement recently in support of most of Daniels’ plan.

“Hoosier homeowners are hurting,” said Indiana Realtors CEO Karl Berron. “Foreclosure rates remain unacceptably high, and home prices in Indiana remain stagnant or are falling. The largest source of most Hoosiers’ wealth, their home, is threatened.”