Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Remember that the amount owed to pensions is based on the value of your home. The less the value the less you owe. This sounds like a stealth asset tax which there is no asset or personal property tax in Illinois. Most people’s largest asset is their home. They can’t tax the money in your bank account or 401K/IRA/Roth/pension but they are using your home as their personal ATM machine. They can raise sales taxes but you would go to the next town if lower.
“The less the value the less you owe.” this is a faulty premise.
Property taxes (as nominal amounts) do not fall when home values fall; instead, tax rates rise.
The levy must be obtained: levy/divided by taxable assessments of property=rate.
if the denominator falls as numerator rises or remains constant, the rate rises.
So in Peoria as in Rockford and Woodstock and Harvey, property values crash but nominal amounts of taxes due per each property rise and rise and rise.
Thanks! My mistake. The less the value equals higher tax rate to get the same or more in taxes than the year before thanks to PTELL. My taxes keep going up no matter what the value isup or down mostly down except for the last two years.. The less the value the less you pay is what many people think happens.