MARIA PAPPAS
COOK COUNTY TREASURER
Pappas Studies
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Tax Year 2020 Tax Bill Analysis
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First-of-its-kind analysis of nearly 1.8 million bills.
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$16.1 billion collected this year, an increase of $534 million from last year (3.4%).
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Commercial property billed more than $7 billion, increase of 410 million (6.2%) from last year.
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Residential property billed $8.9 billion, increase of 114 million (1.3%) from last year.
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Tax increases hit majority Black and Latino communities – homes and businesses – the hardest.
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Compiled data for all Cook County property for 20 years.
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Total taxes billed increased 99 percent, from $7.85 billion to $15.58 billion from 2000 to 2019.
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Residential properties skyrocketed 164% in Chicago, 116% in suburbs.
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Commercial properties jumped 81% in Chicago, 54% in suburbs.
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The cost of living rose just 36% over 20 years, wages for workers rose by 57%.
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Any taxpayer can see their own 20-year increase on cookcountytreasurer.com.
Top 50 - 20-Year Property Tax Increases
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Discloses the Top 50 Property Index Numbers (PINs) with the largest tax increases from 2000 to 2019 in Chicago and the suburbs, for both residential and commercial property.
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The bill for a condominium on East Lake Shore Drive in Chicago jumped 1,890%, from $6,700 to nearly $134,000
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A two-story house in suburban Winnetka saw a 1,174 percent tax increase, from $53,000 to $675,000.
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Since 2011:
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Only 29% of the voting-age population in Chicago has cast ballots in elections.
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The voting-age percentage is 26% in suburban areas.
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The office has already collected more than 99.77 percent of property taxes when the delinquent sale takes place.
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Areas in Cook County that have the most delinquent properties also are:
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losing population
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have large property tax increases
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have the most violent crime
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Of the 51,320 properties offered at the last seven sales, 25,601 (50%) are vacant lots.
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Since 2009, collecting debt figures for 547 local governments in Cook County that set 2,200 different taxing district levies.
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Total debt in Cook County is $153.4 billion.
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From 2016 to early 2021, the total debt grew by $22.8 billion (16.6%)
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During that same period, the consumer price index (CPI) in the Chicago region grew by 8%.
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Much of the debt is rooted in unfunded pension liabilities.
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New functionality on cookcountytreasurer.com allows individual property owners to see the total amount of local government debt attributed to that property.
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In some municipalities, property taxes are so high that homeowners end up paying far more in taxes over the course of a 30-year mortgage than they paid for the home itself.