-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
Why the hell do they NOT tax a house just because it has no toilets? does that suddenly make it not a house? I’m no fan of jabba the governor but he followed the rules, houses without a toilet are exempt, that’s the law, so he yanked them out. And I would assume a govt inspector wrote that down, “no toilets here”. Seems to me the government should be held accountable here for saying a toilet less house is exempt then turning around and complaining in practice. Any owner can say “well I got some toilets on the way the… Read more »
It’s not the toilets themselves. Property tax breaks are provided for uninhabitable properties. Pritzker had the functioning toilets removed and told the assessor the property was uninhabitable (no indoor plumbing!) and therefore entitled to a tax break. That’s fraud. Sports stadiums and farmland also get tax breaks, perhaps Pritzker should have set up some lawn chairs and a keg and declared his mansion a stadium.
The letter of the law doesn’t care why toilets are not there, they just have to not be there. Is choosing to not own a toilet a crime? Government defined the parameters of uninhabitibilty. Does the law specifically say you can’t rip out your toilet? If not he has a case. I still don’t like him, but I don’t see this being a problem for him, we have a right to not have a toilet, the government defines that as uninhabitable so be it and defines the tax therein. The government shouldn’t turn around and complain about their own tax… Read more »
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2017/5/12/18321314/for-j-b-pritzker-mansion-s-disrepair-has-saved-230k-in-taxes There’s a bunch of articles about it but the short of it is that S lob bought two mansions next to each other on Astor street – a 12,000 sq ft and a 6,000 sq ft. He did a $25,000,000 renovation on the two properties but it’s not clear how much work was done on the smaller mansion. The mansions share a common wall so they can be easily combined into one huge house with two separate facades. While the renovation was ongoing, or finished, on either the main mansion or the smaller mansion, he removed all the toilets… Read more »
This toilet law is an incentive law, designed to encourage dormant homes to be made uninhabitable under some kind of measurable and real home condition. I’m no fan of this buddy hacket jr, but I’m sure he’s not the first building owner to do this. The government is what looks foolish here. If I were a home flipper running a small property management company, this would be a regular process in running my business. It’s actually a good thing.
That farmland break is a big one. Farmers didn’t always get it. Farmer’s take up considerable resources yet feel they should get a break. Based upon my property tax bills I, along with everyone else, pay extra to make up for what they don’t pay. I personally am tired of subsidizing them. I also don’t fall fr that line that lowering their expenses lowers my food costs; the food retailers all at prices that maximize their profits not based upon what taxes a farmer pays or not.
Here’s the counter argument why farm owners are given “a break” as to their property tax liability. Farmland doesn’t require police or education expenses, generally speaking. To the extent that it does, then that’s part of the expenses of the property owner just as if he were any other business owner where such matters become normal business expenses. Considering that taxes for school districts usually constitute maybe 3/4 of the home owner’s property tax expense any farm owner pays that as usual on his home but no such tax on the farmland itself or some nominal amount at most. Would… Read more »
Property taxes are not designed to be determined by the amounts of public services granted. Property taxes are designed, by law, to be assessed upon the valuation of the real estate’s value and in doing so are spread among all taxpayers. To consider that the taxes are a business expense and therefore should be lowered is akin to saying most business’ should also be granted tax relief based upon, as farmer’s are, on the productivity of their business. Consider that the Governor removed toilets from a building meaning the building was probably vacant. Following the “farmer’s tax based upon productivity”… Read more »
Riverbender, I don’t know how much you know about farming in general or the net income side of it, but let me give you something to ponder. It’s not at all uncommon for good IL farmland in central IL to have a market value of $10,000 per acre with a local real estate tax of $40 per tillable acre. Some are more, and some are less in both cases, of course. The average farmer may farm 2,000 acres but own maybe 1/4 of that at most. Remember it’s only the owner who pays the tax (directly at least). Now, Please… Read more »
The proper value is the market value as determined by the assessor like every other business’property in Illinois. The tax was enacted based upon property values and it should be fairly applied to all; it is as simple as that. Many other businesses is having difficulty in Illinois these days so does that mean they should have to stop paying taxes too?
The non-farm Illinois property owner is paying higher taxes because farmers do not pay their fair share and quite frankly, we pay enough as it is without having to pay backdoor subsidies to farmers.
Hope the feds make this one stick.
“I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me. I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.” –Blagojevich on Dec. 8, 2008, less than 24 hours before his arrest on federal corruption charges.
Why hasn’t he been impeached?
he should be worried… oh wait, he’s a billionaire nevermind