Property tax bills anger Cook County homeowners (Rahmland)

http://chicago.cbslocal.com ^ | October 5, 2011 9:59 PM | Staff

[Red Badger]

CHICAGO (CBS) – It’s sticker shock in the mail. Tax bills went out to Cook County homeowners this week and the big jump in the amount due to many homeowners has some wondering if they can keep their house.

CBS 2′s Dana Kozlov takes a look at how the dramatic jump in property tax bills is affecting people and what you can do about it.

According to the Cook County Clerk’s office, tax rates are up for schools, park districts, municipalities and other government bodies. Some of those tax levies have made double-digit increases in tax rates.

The property tax reality was setting in with Markham homeowner Patricia Taylor on Wednesday.

Asked if she can keep her house after receiving an $8,100 property tax bill, Taylor said, “I don’t know right now. It’s bad right now, it’s really bad.”

That’s because her property tax bill for her three bedroom, one bathroom house shot up from $6,400 last year to $8,100 this year – a whopping 27 percent jump.

Taylor took time on her day off to head to the Cook County Assessor’s office to see if anything could be done for herself and her mother.

“What do they expect? I don’t live in Beverly Hills, I stay in Markham and this is ridiculous,” Taylor said.

Kelley Quinn, spokeswoman for Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, said the office has had thousands of taxpayers like Taylor walk through their halls this week, wondering what was going on with their bills.

Countywide, property tax bills will jump an average of almost 2.7 percent, according to Quinn.

“What we’re seeing are a lot of anxious people,” Quinn said. “But what we’re also seeing is once they leave here, they’re satisfied and many of them are happy because they are seeing a tax bill that does go down a bit.”

Quinn said many of the people voicing complaints about their tax bills are senior citizens who didn’t apply for their senior exemption, which they must do every year, because of a new law.

Those seniors can still get their exemption with help from the county.

But everyone else? They could be out of luck, because taxing districts – from schools to parks – needed the extra revenue and the taxpayers were forced to foot the bill.

“So your local tax rates are going up, even though your assessments are going down, which results ultimately in a tax bill that could be a little bit higher,” Quinn said.

People who believe their tax bills are incorrectly assessed can appeal through the Cook County Board of Review, but dates for that are very specific and depend on your township.

You can check the Board of Review website or give the office a call at (312) 603-7550 if you have questions.

[Red Badger]

Government greed drives a world in need..............

[razorback-bert]

an $8,100 property tax

Yipes, here you can rent a similiar house in a good area for less.

[Red Badger]

She will somehow blame the Republicans in her mind for this.............

[Anti-Bubba182]

Illinois and Chicago in particular should be turning from blue to red so they can escape paying the machine with a shovel! The market value of the property has probably declined and these animals raises the rates anyway.

[shortey22]

Here in our town in Texas our property values are up (they never did go down) again, and our property tax rates have been reduced this year. Services remain excellent.

Thank you governor Perry.

[imskylark]

I’m in Florida and ours went down as well.

[sportutegrl]

I wonder what the effect these higher property taxes have on the ‘Depression Era housing depreciation’, as reported by the media. It seems to me that a home with an 8000+ tax bill has to be worth a lot less than the identical home with a lower tax bill. Has anyone looked into this? How much house can you afford after you pay 500 to 600 per month in property taxes?

[Codeflier]

I think I am going to puke. Can we swap property tax bills for one year?

[Codeflier]

I used to think the same thing. I lived in a county with higher property taxes than adjacent counties. Over time I started to notice some benefits to the higher property taxes.

1. Property values stayed higher because only people with good money would buy in the area partially because of the taxes.
2. Many of the people were more desirable as neighbors as other counties would get people that would over extend themselves on their houses based on the theory that lower property taxes meant they could get more house.
3. I eventually moved to a county with lower property taxes and I can confirm what I thought. The upkeep for the houses is not done very well in my lower property tax county compared to my higher property tax county.
4. Home values have suffered much more in the lower property tax counties than my higher property tax county where I used to live.

[Ernie Kaputnik]

Yep.

Wonder how the spoiled, ignorant, Occupy Wall Street crowd would feel if they all returned home to Mom & Dad’s house and discovered it’s been foreclosed on because they couldn’t pay the taxes.

Who would they blame then? Public employee unions and government spending? (Of course not.)

[Ernie Kaputnik]

Yep.

Wonder how the spoiled, ignorant, Occupy Wall Street crowd would feel if they all returned home to Mom & Dad’s house and discovered it’s been foreclosed on because they couldn’t pay the taxes.

Who would they blame then? Public employee unions and government spending? (Of course not.)