Elliott & Associates hosted a round table discussion the challenges hoteliers today face in appealing their property taxes. Attached is the agenda for the meeting held on September 18, 2018. Speakers included Brian Silberman (CBRE), Adam Zimmerman (Hilco), Lauren Elliott, Joanne Elliott, & Tom Glynn.  

​2018 Chicago Reassessment: What can you expect?
 
The Assessor will begin mailing re-assessment notices in February. 2018. He will re­assess 7 Chicago townships and will mail notices one township at a time from February through September. The Assessor will announce his anticipated mailing schedule in January and we will. in turn. notify you
Assessments:

• Generally, property values in the City of Chicago are rising. As a result. we expect assessments to rise in 2018. We expect assessment increases to typically range from 20% to 35%, depending on location.

 
 Tax rates:

• Tax rates in Chicago have been rising over the past 3 years as the City and Chicago Public Schools have adopted special levies (in addition to general property tax levies) to shore up their under-funded pensions. Over the past 3 years, these special levies have tacked about 15% onto Chicago tax bills.
• We expect these additional pension levies to grow in up-coming years.

 
When should you hire your attorney?

• By the end of 2017 - recommended

Appeal strategies:

• We will thoroughly evaluate sales in your building and aggressively contest assessments in 2018. Once reduced, the 2018 assessments should remain constant in 2019 and 2020. We will monitor 2019 and 2020 assessments to ensure any reductions we obtain carry forward to those years.
• We will monitor sales in the remaining years of the assessment period (2019 and 2020) to look for additional appeal opportunities. But. if sales prices continue to rise, we expect limited opportunities to obtain additional tax relief in 2019 and 2020.

 

• Exemptions. Homeowner exemptions will rise in 2018 to provide additional tax savings for owner-occupied units.

• The general homeowner exemption will increase about $175 per year.
• The senior exemption will increase about $175 per year.

 
©Copyright 2017 Elliott & Associates Attorneys, P.C.
Revised: November 30, 2017 

The Cook County Clerk’s office recently released the 2015 property tax rates. This is last step in the tax process before tax bills are mailed at the end of this month. Tax bills are expected to be due August 1, 2016.

Here are some of the major factors that will likely impact your 2015 tax bill:

• Property values are rebounding:  After declining for several years, aggregate assessed values (AV) in the City of Chicago increased substantially in 2015. In general, properties with small assessed values saw smaller assessment increases and properties with high assessed values saw dramatically larger increases on a percentage basis.   We expect to see this pattern repeat itself when the Northwest suburbs are re-assessed in 2016.
  
• Equalized tax rates fell by roughly 1.2% in 2015 in the City of Chicago:  Equalized tax rates are applied to the assessment to determine taxes before exemptions.  Equalized tax rates tend to fall when an area is reassessed (which was the case in Chicago).  The reduced equalized tax rates will help to off-set the assessment increases due to the 2015 Chicago re-assessment.  In the suburbs, equalized tax rates generally rose in 2015 as government spending increased and the suburban tax base was not generally reassessed.
  
• Tax bills have hit an all time high in Cook County:  Total Cook County property taxes exceeded $13 billion in 2015 for the first time ever. The City of Chicago levy grew over 40%, from $774M to over $1B, as the City of Chicago adopted a new and separate levy to cover its pension obligations.   Chicago tax bills will be higher than otherwise because of this pension levy.  The Chicago pension levy will NOT impact suburban tax bills.
  
• Your 2015 tax bill will likely  increase unless your assessment fell:  Increased government spending, coupled with the new pension levy for Chicago and the Chicago re-assessment means that most Chicago property owners will experience significant tax increases in 2015 unless their assessments were reduced below prior year levels (generally not likely in a re-assessment year).

It pays to contest your assessment: You cannot control government spending and increases in tax rates, but you can control your assessment through the tax appeal process. By doing so, you can potentially reduce your tax bill, or at a minimum, limit its growth.
You can download the Clerk’s full report: click below

Did you ever wonder what the Cook County equalizer is? 

Cook County recently announced that it’s final equalizer for 2015 is 2.6685.  That means that all Cook County assessments are increased nearly 3 times before the local tax rate is applied to determine the amount of tax you pay.  The equalizer is a number computed by statisticians that raises all Cook County assessments by the same amount so that it can be said that after the equalizer is applied aggregate Cook County assessments are 33% of the aggregate market value of Cook County property.  It is necessary to apply an equalizer in Cook County because our assessments are so low relative to the rest of the state and school aid is based on equalized assessed values.  In Cook County, homes (the bulk of the tax base) are assessed at 10% of market value and commercial property is assessed at 25% of market value.  Everywhere else in Illinois, property is assessed at 33% of market value.  So, the Cook County tax base is assessed much lower than the rest of the state.  The Cook County equalizer raises our assessments so that after the equalizer is applied, statisticians can say that Cook County property is, in the aggregate, assessed at 33% of its market value.

​If you would like to see a technical explanation of how the equalizer is computed, download the file below:

The Illinois Department of Revenue has released the tentative 2015 Cook County equalizer, and it is scheduled to decrease by about 4.4% from the 2014 level.  Property taxes are a product of the assessed value, equalizer, and local tax rate. We expect the Cook County Clerk to release 2015 tax rates in early June prior to the mailing of the 2nd installment tax bills in late June.  2nd installment tax bills are expected to be due on August 1, 2016.

Attached is the official release.