Cook County Tax Cap To Expire

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

If you own a home or property in Chicago, it's probably worth more -- maybe two or three times more -- than it was three years ago, according to the Cook County assessor. And you'll be taxed accordingly.

The Civic Federation of Chicago calculates an average 36 percent hike in every tax bill -- or $829 more a year, unless state legislators renew a homeowners' protection bill that would drop the average hike down to about $255.

The assessor's office finished its once-every-three-years assessment of property in Chicago, and just about every corner of the city is seeing a whopping increase in assessed home values.

In theory, that's great news if you're selling your property and could expect a big profit. In practice, try telling that to homeowners who have had their homes on the market for a year since real estate sales plummeted back to Earth.


But for those staying put, it means tax bills are likely to go up. A 200 percent hike in assessed value will not necessarily translate to triple taxes because just about everyone else's bill in the city is going up, too, so the increase will be spread out.

But the Cook County suburbs are not being re-assessed, so city residents will pay a proportionately higher share to taxing agencies such as county government and the forest preserve that tax countywide. That's payback for the suburbs paying a disproportionate share over the last two years.

Helen Quaites saw the assessed value on her Washington Park home jump from $51,000 to $180,000. Earnest Horton saw the assessed value of his Fuller Park six-flat jump from $54,000 to $238,000.

"You don't have any choice -- you pay it or you have to move," said Leonard Gilbert, whose taxes on his Rogers Park home are jumping from $4,604 to $6,513 unless the protection bill passes. "I pay more in taxes now than on my mortgage."

That quote is a true statement.At a certain level the government really owns your property in the high tax county of Cook.