By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner.
It should be an embarrassment for every one of our legislators and government leaders. The latest report from ATTOM Data Solutions shows that Illinois’ counties and metro areas dominate the list of the nation’s highest property tax rates.
Illinois has 27 of the nation’s top 50 counties* for highest property tax rates. And five of Illinois’ metro areas are in the nation’s top 10, including the four highest in the country.
The Rockford metro area takes the nation’s crown as the heaviest-taxing place in the country when measured as a share of home value. The average Rockford resident pays nearly 2.1% of their home value in property taxes every year – or about $4,500. Last year Rockford had the nation’s second-highest taxes, beaten only by Akron, Ohio.
The Chicago metro area took 2nd-place with an effective rate of 1.91% and a tax bill of nearly $7,800.
It’s important to keep in mind that these effective numbers are overall averages. There is a large variation in effective tax rates in places as big as the Chicago metro – including places like the Southland area where residents have just been hit with massive tax increases and pay crippling effective tax rates of 5,6 and even 7%.
Peoria took 3rd in the nation with a rate of 1.89% and Champaign-Urbana took 4th with 1.88%.
And the Springfield area took 6th-place, only beaten out by Trenton, New Jersey.
With so many metro areas being in the top-10 taxed in the country, it shouldn’t be surprising that many Illinois counties also ranked highly.
Knox County residents pay Illinois’ highest property taxes. Their bills are, on average, $2,700 a year, on property values averaging just $123,000. That’s what forces homeowners to pay an effective tax rate of 2.19% – the 8th-highest rate among populous* counties in the country.
Just like last year, Illinois took the top spot among the 50 states, with an effective average property tax rate of 1.87%. And again, all of Illinois’ neighbors sported far lower rates. Illinois’ rate is 2 times that of Indiana’s and 2.5 times that of Missouri and Kentucky’s.
What’s different about this year is that the tax gap between the Prairie State and the rest of the nation appears to be getting worse. New Jersey and Illinois have traded places for 1st place for years, but in 2024 the gap between Illinois’(1.87%) and New Jersey’s (1.59%) effective rate reached 0.27% – the highest it’s ever been.
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Illinois’ extreme outlier status on property taxes continues because our General Assembly, led by Democratic supermajorities, refuses to take on the drivers of higher taxes. Like public sector union powers. Or pensions. Or jumping education costs.
Illinoisans are waiting. Well, those that haven’t left yet.
*ATTOM’s data includes counties with 10,000 or more single family homes in 2024 and populations over 100,000.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- One big reason your Illinois property taxes are so high. And why you should get a big refund.
- More than $1 billion in market losses is a reminder of how close Chicago pensions are to the brink
- Chicago property taxes rise 3.5 times faster than inflation in last decade
- Shutter, roll back, freeze. Three things Chicago Public Schools needs to do.
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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Why can’t the Federal government step in and fix the broken system in Illinois and help it’s citizens who are drowning in taxes? Our quality of life is miserable here. The state is sucking us dry.
Don’t forget there are pockets of county taxes within Rockford city limits. Those who live here or are close know about that. So I’m not sure if the percentage is averaged or separate but most of the city is far higher that 2.06%. The city tax rate is 10.3834% the county rate is 8.7268% within city limits. So I pay $8,185.64 now on $236.5K value but if my home was less than 2 miles away in the county portion of the city my bill would be $6,879.68. Over 3% of value for most people depending on deduction.
As Leftist Democrats work to increase taxes and fees on near everything to pay for their public union welfare state, the economy falters more and more so home values falter also thus driving the percentage higher. Fully expect to see IL property tax rate at +3% in a few more years.
Looking at the cities such as Trenton, Hartford, New Haven etc. in the same basket with cities in IL, I think one can surmise that none of these taxpayers are getting much in return for being gouged.
I bet Illinois is starting to have some of the highest default rate as well. If they raise taxes more, which they certainly will do, the rate will go higher and more people will be pushed out of their homes and the ones who can will leave the state. Thank you JB and the merry clowns of the Democratic party. Yes let eliminate the tier2 and let more people retire at 55 with full pay and put another couple billon into the red in pensions that the people, not state workers/teachers/etc, who have to work to at least 67 will… Read more »
All this article is saying is to get out of this dump of a state now before it totally collapses. Mark and Ted have no realistic solutions. It will take total collapse of the state and the pensions to fix things, and that in time will happen. Who wants to stay for that?
When Waddles finally pulls the trigger and begins taxing pensions( thus insuring a loss in his next election ) watch the IL apologists and cheerleaders head out like the tribes of Israel fleeing Egypt as portrayed in “ The Ten Commandments.”.
Pension costs are one of the main drivers of high taxes. So, it looks like this is going to last at least for a generation or two. As more and more people exit Illinois (because of high taxes) the remaining taxpayers will have to pick up a larger share of the tax bill.