Midwest

Public forums have painted a picture of Cook County residential owners carrying an unfair property tax burden, but the truth is that property taxes have increased for everyone. The culprit is not the institutional taxpayer, nor is it the valuation process; today’s oppressive property taxes are a symptom of a diseased system for funding municipal pensions. Clarity on inequity To understand where the inequity lies, it is important to first understand how Cook County values residential versus commercial real estate. Outside of Cook County, every property is assessed at a third of its market value, regardless of property type. Therefore, every $1 million property — residential and commercial alike — will have a taxable assessed value of $333,333. Multiplying that by the local tax rate (let’s use 7 percent) creates a $23,333 tax bill. By contrast, Cook County assesses every residential property for taxation at 10 percent of its market value, whether it be a single-family home, apartment building, condominium, co-op or the residential component of a mixed-use development. If the market value of a single-family home is $1 million, its assessed value is $100,000. Taxing entities multiply this by the state equalization factor, which hovers around 3.0 for an …