Your 2027 Marion County tax bill will not arrive until next spring, but most of what will be printed on it is being decided right now — some of it already locked, some of it on a ballot, some of it written into a statute's phase-in schedule. Three forces dominate, and they push in different directions for different owners.
We are going to do something deliberately un-clickbaity here: give you the direction and the verified magnitude of each force separately, and refuse to mash them into a single made-up "here's your 2027 bill" number. The honest answer is that no such number can exist yet — 2027 certified tax rates will not be set until early 2027 — and any post that hands you one is guessing.
The Three Forces at a Glance
| Force | Direction | Who feels it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second reassessment wave (Jan 1, 2026 values) | Up, sharply, for apartments and commercial | Multifamily and C&I owners; homeowners indirectly | Locked — appeal window closed June 15 |
| IPS operating referendum (37.2 cents) | Up if it passes, inside the IPS boundary | Every IPS-boundary parcel, capped or not | Decided November 3, 2026 |
| SEA 1 year-two deduction phase-in | Depends on home value | Every Indiana homestead | Locked by statute |
Force 1: The Second Reassessment Wave Is Already Locked In
Every 2027 bill is built on the January 1, 2026 assessment date, and for apartment owners that assessment carries the second of two back-to-back base-rate increases. As we reported in our post on the second apartment assessment jump, the DLGF removed a moderating cost-schedule adjustment for the January 1, 2025 values that added roughly $2 billion of multifamily AV in Marion County, then raised apartment base rates again for the January 1, 2026 date — back-to-back increases that a Faegre Drinker client alert called "enormous two-year jumps" for Indiana apartment owners. Those 2026 values landed on the Form 11s mailed April 28, and the Form 130 window to contest them closed June 15, 2026. Owners who filed have live appeals; owners who did not will pay 2027 bills on the new values.
Homeowners are not assessed off apartment tables, but the wave still touches you two ways. First, growth in the commercial and multifamily base changes the AV mix that 2027 rates are computed against. Second, apartments sit at the 2% cap and pass costs through — a dynamic we covered in the rental market context of Indianapolis's mid-2026 housing data. Direction for multifamily and commercial owners: up. Magnitude for any single parcel: whatever your Form 11 said in April.
Force 2: The IPS Referendum — Decided November 3
On June 22, 2026, IPEC voted unanimously to put a four-year operating referendum at 37.2 cents per $100 of assessed value on the November ballot, per WFYI — about $87.8 million per year starting with 2027 bills, split roughly evenly between IPS and some 60 charter schools. The cost math, including the fact that it replaces the expiring 19.6-cent rate rather than stacking on it, is in our referendum cost breakdown.
Two things make this force different from the others. It is conditional — voters decide it on November 3, and our ballot voter guide covers the mechanics, including Decatur Township's separate replacement question. And it is cap-proof: referendum levies sit outside the 1% homestead cap, so a "yes" reaches even fully capped bills dollar for dollar. Direction if it passes: up relative to the expiring rate for IPS-boundary parcels; if it fails, that entire line falls off 2027 bills when the 2018 referendum expires in December.
Force 3: SEA 1's Year-Two Deduction Math
The 2027 bill is the second step in SEA 1's six-year homestead restructuring. Per the schedule in the DLGF's June 12, 2025 deductions memo, the standard homestead deduction drops from $48,000 to $40,000 for pay-2027, while the supplemental deduction rises from 40% to 46% of the remaining value. The full year-by-year table, with worked examples, is in our 2026–2031 phase-in schedule.
Direction: it depends on your home's value, because relief is migrating from a flat dollar deduction toward a percentage. Using the schedule's own arithmetic, a $250,000 homestead's net taxable AV falls from $121,200 (pay-2026) to $113,400 (pay-2027) — the percentage gain outruns the flat-deduction loss. For modest homes the trade runs the other way: below a crossover of about $120,000 of gross AV — the point where 0.60 × (AV − $48,000) equals 0.54 × (AV − $40,000) — taxable value creeps up as the flat deduction shrinks. The 10%-of-bill homestead credit, capped at $300, continues alongside either outcome.
What We Can't Know Yet
Honesty section. Three inputs to your 2027 bill do not exist yet, and nobody can compute around them:
- 2027 certified tax rates. The DLGF certifies Marion County's rates in the annual budget order — the 2026 order was prepared February 26, 2026, and 2026 district rates ran $2.4269 to $4.2369 per $100. The 2027 equivalents arrive in early 2027, after levies, the new levy growth quotient formula, and the county's AV base are settled.
- Local revenue decisions. Counties can still adopt the SEA 1 homestead-relief LIT during the 2026–2027 window, and fall budget hearings shape every unit's levy.
- The election itself. Force 2 is binary until November 3.
Warning
Any article offering you a precise combined 2027 Marion County bill before rates are certified is multiplying verified numbers by invented ones. Use the forces above to know your direction and exposure — locked values, a conditional referendum line, statutory deduction changes — and fill in the rate when the DLGF publishes it.
How to Bound Your Own 2027 Exposure
- Pull your January 1, 2026 assessed value from your April Form 11 — that value is your 2027 base, appeal pending or not.
- Apply the pay-2027 deduction math if you are a homestead: minus $40,000, then minus 46% of the remainder.
- Flag the referendum line if you are inside the IPS or Decatur Township boundary: multiply the proposed rate by your net AV to see the cap-proof piece voters are deciding.
- Watch for the budget order in early 2027, then check your escrow — servicers re-analyze on a lag, as we covered in the escrow and SEA 1 guide.
Verify Your Baseline Now
Every one of these forces multiplies against the same number: your assessed value. Verify it now — pull your parcel, its deduction status, and comparable assessments in our Property Lookup. If the January 1, 2026 value is wrong, the 2027 appeal cycle opening next spring is your next chance to fix the base before all three forces compound on it.