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Grundy County parcels illustrate failure to properly assess
Cannon at Morris, IL (credit: Joseph Gage, CC BY-SA 2.0) I am not saying that anything that follows is unlawful. It should be, but very possibly it isn’t. Bisnow informs us of another data center...
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Tax favors for owners of “farmland”
Continuing our exploration of land values and real estate taxes in Cook County … Parcel #06364020270000, at 1830 Lake St in Hanover Park. 7.36 acres, adjacent to a residential area and virtually...
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Cook County contains 59,886 vacant taxable land parcels
A vacant lot (source: Cook County Assessor) The current locally assessed value of these 59,886 parcels totals $490.23 million. By ordinance, these assessments are 10% of what the Assessor estimates to...
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Tribune and “Illinois Answers” explain why value of improvements should be...
“Cook County assessor misclassifies hundreds of properties, missing $444M in one year alone,” says the Chicago Tribune. The report is joint with Illinois Answers. $444 million is a lot of money, about...
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Three “finalist” proposals for fixing Chicago’s pension mess
image credit: Artistmac We have an article from Crains reporting on the winning proposal for solving the disaster that is the City of Chicago’s pension plans. Of course a new fee is involved, being a...
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Are Cook County property taxes actually paid? Some data from Maria Pappas
A street in Ford Heights (Google) Georgists like to say that one of the many advantages of a real estate tax over other taxes is that, if the owner does not pay it, eventually s/he’ll lose the...
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Property tax can’t be equitable, Kaegi asserts
Disused Chicago bread factory to become data center. Image credit: Emily CC BY-NC 2.0 In a new article (archived copy, also included in this pdf) for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Cook County...
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2020 Cook County Property Tax Analysis — sort of
image credit: Andy Arthur CC BY 2.0 We have a new report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, subtitled “2020 Cook County property tax analysis: A heavier burden for businesses, Black and Latino...
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Sun-Times report inadvertently helps show the benefits of simple LVT as a...
Image credit: Purple Wyrm CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 According to a Sun-Times report, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi acknowledges that his “Senior Freeze” program, under which old property owners claiming...
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Clobbering fairness more accurately
Where fairness comes from: Cook County Board Pres. Toni Preckwinkle; Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (credit: WBEZ CC BY-NC 2.0 and Wikipedia) We have a new North Suburban Reassessment Report...
View ArticleNot the first daylight robbery, but a good one
I’ve long considered Dominic Frisby, perhaps the only working comic who’s also a financial writer, to be a Georgist. Several years ago he posted a nice video explaining the land value tax. Now he’s...
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High land prices as a banking problem
image credit: Ann Priestley (cc) via flickr Here’s an (audio) interview with economist Richard Werner, who remarks on the problems high land prices have posed for the Japanese economy in recent...
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Some effects of high and misconfigured real estate taxes
Delinquent taxes soaring in Cook County Reportedly, taxes of 163,036 parcels in Cook County were not paid on time. This comprises 2018 taxes which should have been paid in 2019. and amounts to 8.7% of...
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Why does public policy favor homeowners over renters?
image credit: Stephen Dann CC BY-SA 2.0 It’s certainly true here, where owner-occupants (of houses or condos) pay less tax than renters occupying units of the same value, with additional discounts for...
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Notes on Cook County Assessments
Selection from Olcott’s Land Values Blue Book, 1936 edition, Numbers represent values per front foot, to be adjusted as described in the book. Assessor Fritz Kaegi appears to seek assessments that are...
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Notes on farmland from the 2017 Census of Agriculture for Illinois
1009 Illinois farms have leased wind rights to others. (“Farms” by jopaha is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 ) The 2017 Census of Agriculture Illinois report was issued earlier this month, and here are a...
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Wealth tax would require even more government monitoring
Not the paper, but the book cited below Here’s a brief paper (pdf) by two Berkeley economists suggesting how a “progressive wealth tax” could work. They assume a 2% rate would be applied to wealth in...
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Some Cook County assessments are maybe about as bad as we thought
We have a new report(pdf) today from the Civic Consulting Alliance, pointing out that residential assessments (excluding condominiums and large apartment buildings) done by Joe Berrios and his crew...
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About those corporate tax rates…
credit: Mike Licht (CC BY 2.0) We hear that corporate tax rates, at 35% (federal), are too high and need to be reduced so U S companies can be competitive. I remain confident that the best way to fund...
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Another outrage that a land value tax would eliminate
One of many sophisticated dogs named “Wrigley” Image credit: Liz CC BY-NC 2.0 Expanding on a subject covered here nearly six years ago, Tim Novak of the Sun Times writes about assessment deals in...
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