Indiana farmers and agribusiness owners are reporting steep increases in property tax assessments on livestock barns, grain facilities and storage structures this year, with some agricultural buildings seeing assessed values climb by as much as 300 percent — a surge that farm groups warn could deepen financial strain across a struggling rural economy.
“The farm economy isn’t great right now, and rising property taxes on ag buildings is certainly the last thing any of our members want to see,” said Ryan Hoff, senior director of government affairs for Indiana Farm Bureau.
The increases stem largely from updated construction cost tables issued by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, which had not been fully revised since 2022 and were still based on pre-inflation construction data from 2021. The revised formulas now reflect the sharp rise in labor and material costs that followed the pandemic-era construction boom…