Every June 16, the same conversation happens in county assessor offices across Indiana: an owner discovers something wrong with their assessment and learns the appeal deadline passed the day before. What most of those owners never learn is that Indiana law draws a sharp line between two kinds of "wrong" — and one of them can still be fixed for up to three years after the taxes were first due.
This is the statewide guide to that second kind: the correction of error, governed by IC 6-1.1-15-1.1. If you're in Marion County specifically, pair this with our Marion playbook for owners who missed June 15 — this post is the statute; that one is the practical filing walkthrough.
Subjective vs. objective: the line that decides everything
Indiana consolidated its appeal procedures in 2017. The old two-track system — Form 130 for valuation disputes, Form 133 for objective corrections — was replaced by a single Form 130 with both claim types on it, all governed by IC 6-1.1-15-1.1. The DLGF's appeals overview describes the current structure.
The two tracks kept different deadlines:
| Claim type | What it argues | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Subjective (valuation) | The AV exceeds market value-in-use | June 15 of the assessment year (Form 11 mailed before May 1), or June 15 of the following year (mailed on/after May 1) |
| Objective (correction of error) | A fact in the record is provably wrong | Three years after the taxes were first due |
A subjective claim requires judgment — comparable sales, condition adjustments, an opinion of value. An objective claim requires none: anyone looking at the documents can see the error. That's the test to apply to your own situation before anything else.
The four qualifying error categories
Per the DLGF guidance and the Form 130 instructions, a correction-of-error claim must fit one of these categories:
1. The assessment was against the wrong person
You sold the property, never owned it, or the parcel was attributed to the wrong taxpayer entirely.
2. A deduction, credit, exemption, abatement, or tax cap was wrongly approved, denied, or omitted
The workhorse category. A homestead deduction that vanished after a refinance or a title change into a trust; an over-65 deduction applied to the wrong parcel; a homestead billed at the 2% or 3% circuit-breaker cap instead of 1%. These errors change the bill without changing the AV, and they routinely persist for multiple years — which is exactly what the three-year reach-back is for.
3. A clerical, mathematical, or typographical mistake
Transposed digits, a decimal shifted in the square footage, taxes computed against the wrong assessed value, a double-counted improvement line.
4. An error in the description of the property
The record card shows a structure that doesn't exist, acreage that was split off years ago, or a property description that belongs to a different parcel.
Warning
What never qualifies: a disagreement about value. "The assessor says $320,000 and my house is worth $280,000" is a subjective claim no matter how confident you are, and it is bound by the June 15 deadline. Filing it as a correction of error doesn't extend anything — it gets the claim rejected. If the June 15 date passed, your valuation argument waits for the next Form 11.
The three-year window, in practice
The statute of limitations runs from when the taxes were first due — the spring installment date for the year in question. From July 2026, that means:
| Bills payable in | Taxes first due | Correction reachable? |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | May 10, 2023 | No — window closed spring 2026 |
| 2024 | May 10, 2024 | Yes — through spring 2027 |
| 2025 | May 12, 2025 | Yes |
| 2026 | May 11, 2026 statewide (the statutory May 10 fell on a Sunday) | Yes |
Two implications worth pausing on. First, a correction filed today can fix multiple years at once — if your homestead deduction silently dropped in 2024, the 2024, 2025, and 2026 bills are all still reachable. Second, the window is always closing on the oldest year: each spring due date that passes takes a year of potential refunds off the table.
How to file and what to attach
The vehicle is the standard Form 130 — Taxpayer's Notice to Initiate an Appeal, filed with your county assessor. The current form has a dedicated section for objective claims (Section III); check the error category that applies and describe it specifically.
The evidence standard follows from the nature of the claim: documents that make the error self-evident.
- Wrong person: the recorded deed or closing documents
- Deduction/credit/cap errors: the deduction application, the tax bill showing the wrong cap tier, proof of eligibility
- Clerical/math errors: the record card and the correct figure side by side
- Description errors: photos, surveys, demolition permits, plat records
No appraisal, no comps, no opinion of value — if your evidence package needs those, you're on the wrong track and the claim will be treated (and time-barred) as subjective.
Once filed, the claim moves through the same machinery as any appeal: an informal conference with the assessing official, then the county PTABOA, with escalation to the Indiana Board of Tax Review available if the county gets it wrong.
The auditor's parallel correction power
Separate from taxpayer-initiated claims, IC 6-1.1-15-12.1 authorizes the county auditor to correct certain errors on discovery: property descriptions, taxpayer identity, and — subject to conditions — tax caps, credits, exemptions, and deductions. Computation errors on taxes and penalties can be corrected with the county treasurer's approval.
Practically, this means a phone call to the auditor sometimes fixes a dropped deduction without a formal filing. But a phone call creates no record and no deadline protection. The defensible sequence: file the Form 130 objective claim, then ask the auditor to act — if they fix it administratively, you withdraw; if they don't, your filing is on the clock.
After you win: the refund
A successful correction flows to the auditor, who recalculates what you should have paid. Overpayments come back through the refund process — the same Form 17T mechanics we covered in the appeal-payment protection post, with statutory interest. For a multi-year deduction error, that refund can cover every reachable year, which is why the correction path is often worth more in dollars than the valuation appeal the owner originally missed.
Verify before you file
The correction-of-error path is only as good as the error you can prove. Verify what your county's records actually say — assessed value history, record card characteristics, deductions on file, and which cap tier your bill used — with Property Lookup before you commit a claim to paper. If what you find is a valuation problem instead, Tax Appeal Automation can have your Form 130 ready the day the next Form 11 mails.