Cook County Homeowners Beginning to Feel the Pain the Rest of Have All Along & How State Law Gives Cook County Homeowners Tax Breaks Not Seen in the Other 101 Counties

Outside of Cook County all real estate is taxed at the same percentage of market value–one-third of a three-year running average.

[That sounds stupid and it probably is.

[I admit to agreeing to that formula and regret it today.

[Back in the 1970’s after the new 1970 State Constitution passed, the mandate was uniformity, rather than the previously ignored, but mandated full, fair market value. This had been degraded to fifty percent of what properties sold for.

[With 1970’s average being about one-third of market value, the logical new statute should have been one-third of market value.

[However, the Farm Bureau came in claiming that would be unfair to farm land, pointing to land purchases for the Galena Territory in Jo Daviess County.

[The resulting compromise was the one-third of a three-year running average came from.

{And, ironically, the Illinois Agricultural Association (Farm Bureau) lobbied successfully to opt out of that law for a still lower productivity-determined assessment system.]

So, now, Crain’s Chicago Business is headlining the shift of property tax burden from business to homeowners.

This is a very big deal because since the Great Depression, when real estate taxes were not collected during one year, homeowners have been favored over business property owners.

This has been a good deal for Cook County homeowners.

And, more than because business is forced to subsidize homeowners in Cook County.

To assuage the complaints from homeowners, Cook County legislators enacted legislations that lower assessments.

Legislators outside of Cook County voted for the bills, probably not realizing their constituents were receiving proportionately lower benefits than homeowners in Cook County.

That’s because assessments on equally valued homes in non-Cook County parts of Illinois are assessed higher than those in Cook County.

The result is than some of the lowest-assessed homes in Cook County now pay no property taxes.

That is not the case in any of Illinois’ other 101 counties.