For years, a certain playbook worked in Indiana commercial assessment appeals: hire a credentialed appraiser, produce a USPAP-compliant report, and let the report's existence do most of the arguing. A recent Indiana Tax Court decision — Madison County Assessor v. Kohl's Indiana, LP, No. 24T-TA-00009 (decided November 17, 2025) — closed that door, and commentary through the first half of 2026 has made clear the change reaches every commercial appeal in the state.
The court reversed the Indiana Board of Tax Review (IBTR) for applying what it called a per-se burden-of-proof standard: treating an expert appraisal, prepared under generally accepted appraisal principles, as automatically sufficient to prove an assessment wrong. The court's answer was blunt. An expert appraisal is not "per se evidence" that an assessment is incorrect. For an appraisal to carry the burden, its "analysis and conclusions of value must stand on their own."
If you own commercial property in Indiana — or plan to appeal anything larger than a house — this decision reshapes how you build your case.
What Happened in the Kohl's Case
Kohl's operates a retail department store in Anderson, Indiana. The Madison County assessments at issue were substantial:
Kohl's appealed the 2019-2021 assessments and presented an expert appraisal. The IBTR acknowledged flaws in both parties' appraisals but found the assessor's report "less credible" and the taxpayer's flaws "somewhat less egregious." Crucially, the Board reasoned that a USPAP-compliant expert appraisal, "standing alone, is sufficient to establish a prima facie case for the market value-in-use." On that basis it adopted the taxpayer's values — $2,360,000 for 2020 and $2,380,000 for 2021, roughly half the assessed figures.
The assessor appealed to the Tax Court, arguing that merely producing an expert appraisal should not automatically satisfy the taxpayer's burden. The court agreed, holding the Board misapplied the law by elevating the form of the appraisal — credentials, USPAP compliance — over its substance. In one of the opinion's most quotable lines: "Appraisals, like books, cannot be judged by their covers."
The court reversed and remanded, instructing the Board to reweigh the evidence without the per-se rule. The taxpayer must "establish how and why the facts and evidence presented are probative of this particular property's value," and the Board must weigh an appraisal like any other evidence — under the preponderance of the evidence standard in IC 6-1.1-15-4(j).
Warning
Note the irony: the per-se standard the court struck down had favored the taxpayer at the Board level. The same logic cuts both ways. A thin appraisal will no longer win just because it exists — whether it belongs to the owner or the assessor.
How Burden of Proof Works in an Indiana Appeal
Indiana assessment appeals start from a simple default: the taxpayer challenging the assessment generally bears the burden of showing the assessed value does not reflect the property's true tax value (its market value-in-use). The administrative rules — see 50 IAC 2.4-1-1(c), cited in the Kohl's opinion — put that demonstration on the party attacking the number.
But Indiana layers a significant exception on top: the 5% rule.
The 5% rule, then and now
From 2011 until 2022, IC 6-1.1-15-17.2 flipped the burden entirely: if an assessment rose more than 5% over the prior year, the assessor had to prove the new assessment was correct. The Legislature repealed that statute in 2022 (P.L. 174-2022) and enacted IC 6-1.1-15-20 in its place. The new statute keeps the burden shift but changes what happens with the evidence:
| Feature | Old rule (IC 6-1.1-15-17.2, repealed 2022) | Current rule (IC 6-1.1-15-20) |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Assessment increase over 5% year-over-year | Same trigger |
| Who must prove the value | Assessor | Assessor, then taxpayer may present evidence |
| If proof falls short | Assessment reverted to prior year | Board weighs the totality of evidence; reverts to prior year only if the evidence is insufficient to determine value |
| Exceptions | Yes | Yes — substantial renovations or new improvements, zoning changes, or use changes not previously considered |
Two practical points follow. First, check the math on your Form 11: if your assessment jumped more than 5% with no physical change, zoning change, or use change, the assessor starts the hearing holding the burden. Second, the burden shift is an opening advantage, not a victory. Under the current statute the Board can land on any value the totality of the evidence supports — so you still need affirmative evidence of your own. Our guide to PTABOA versus the Indiana Board of Tax Review walks through where each of these fights happens.
The Dark-Store Backdrop
The Kohl's decision did not arrive in a vacuum. Big-box and department-store assessments have been a running battleground in Indiana for over a decade — the so-called "dark store" litigation, in which national retailers argue their occupied stores should be valued by reference to sales of vacant or repurposed big-box buildings, while assessors counter that those comparables understate value-in-use. The Legislature has intervened, assessors have grown more aggressive in defending large retail values, and appraisal methodology is where these cases are won and lost.
Kohl's fits that pattern: a department store assessed near $4.5 million, an owner's appraisal supporting roughly $2.4 million, and a dispute that turned entirely on whose valuation evidence deserved weight. The Tax Court's message is that in this next round of retail litigation, the tiebreaker is analytical rigor — not the letterhead on the report.
What Evidence Actually Carries the Burden Now
After Kohl's, assume the Board will interrogate the inside of your valuation evidence. The elements that hold up:
- Comparables that are genuinely comparable. Adjustments must be explained, not asserted. Our breakdown of comparable sales evidence in Indiana appeals covers what boards look for.
- An income approach built on real data. Market rents, actual vacancy, supportable cap rates — see our guide to the income approach for 2026 commercial appeals.
- Reconciliation that explains itself. If your appraiser weights one approach over another, the report must say why for this property.
- Property-specific proof. Deferred maintenance, functional obsolescence, and vacancy claims need documentation. Owners of struggling office product should read our coverage of downtown office vacancy appeals — the same evidentiary discipline applies.
Tip
A shorter appraisal with defensible adjustments now beats a thick one with unexplained conclusions. Before you spend on an appraisal, spend an hour stress-testing the record card and the comparables yourself.
What This Means for Your Appeal
Three takeaways for Indiana owners heading into hearings this year:
- Do not outsource your case to a credential. An expert report is a vehicle for evidence, not a substitute for it.
- Use the 5% rule, but do not rely on it. The burden shift gets you a favorable starting position; the totality-of-evidence standard means you still need a number the Board can adopt.
- Attack (and defend) substance. The same per-se logic the court rejected also disarms an assessor who shows up with a formulaic mass-appraisal defense.
Where AribaTax Fits
Building a substance-first appeal starts with knowing your property's data cold. AribaTax pulls your parcel's assessment history — including whether this year's increase crossed the 5% burden-shift threshold — alongside comparable sales and assessments for similar properties in your county. Start with our property lookup tool to see how your assessment stacks up, or let our tax appeal service assemble the evidence package and handle the filing. When the burden of proof turns on the quality of your evidence, showing up with organized, parcel-level data is the cheapest advantage available.