Posted on 10/14/2016 10:09:51 AM PDT by george76
Pardess Mitchell is watching her community crumble.
She and her husband have lived in Lake County for 16 years. They pay more in property taxes than they do on their mortgage. The tax bill is $15,000 a year on a house they bought for $227,000 in 2013.
“They’re taxing us out of the neighborhood. They’re pushing us out. They’re pushing us out of our homes and communities,” she said. “If it continues this way we’ll have to leave.”
A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll released Oct. 10 revealed nearly half of registered Illinois voters said they would leave the state if they could. Many have left already.
Take Alex Schmidt. He was born and raised in Illinois. He never thought his first child would be born a Texan.
But in May, Schmidt and his wife left Illinois for Houston. He said taxes drove them out. He couldn’t take another hike in his property tax bill: It was $12,000 on a Highland Park home.
“As soon as I had to get a property tax attorney a light bulb went off,” he said. “What am I doing?”
Outside Houston, the Schmidts live in a house 50 percent larger with a smaller property tax bill than their Illinois home. The schools are even better than what they left behind. And Texas doesn’t have an income tax. So Alex got a raise.
Illinois has a massive problem with residents leaving the state for greener pastures.
Over the last decade, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show Illinois has experienced a net loss of 290,000 working-age adults to out-migration. But many Illinois politicians refuse to acknowledge it’s a problem.
...
Illinoisans pay among the highest property taxes in the country. It’s not surprising that some are deciding to move as a result.
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoispolicy.org ...
The grandparents really don't, but they're still friendly.
I've developed a reputation, undeserved, that I'm not one to be messed with. Must be the military bearing that's stayed with me for nearly 40 years, and I've been to enough Veteran's Day ceremonies. Maybe my children's friends heard stories from my kids...who knows?
“Texas property tax can go up 10% each year. Mine has each and every year.”
A TV commercial ought to be made and aired using the local old folks getting 0% Social Security increases and 10% property tax increases.
The Democrats need to be shown to be the lying thieves that they are.
We need to make New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois reliable Republican states.
Well, I called DuPage County Treasurer and looked at property bill...no hidden fees unless they are hiding them...and I asked...
Your Lake County info is surprising thta they are highest in state...Wow even higher than Cook! Your example of a house value and property taxes sounds a lot more reasonable that the article...I cannot believe a tax bill is $15,000 a year on a house they bought for $227,000 in 2013. Does not add up...
It gets tiresome seeing reports and articles that are not completely clear like the one posted. Again, there is something wrong with tho9se numbers.
Illinois does have lots of problems, but property tax problems are local and may be the one area where taxpayers can have more ability to reduce taxes.
I remember from my visit there right after 911 that only the state could sell liquor.
Part of this is pushed by school district funding, both the Robin Hood redistribution to “poorer” districts and unaccountable school district funding in general.
Part of it is also cost shifting in many jurisdictions where those over 65 or in various categories get property taxes frozen, so the rates for everyone else go up even more.
During the late 60s and early 70s raising property taxes was a key part of “The War on Poverty” to finance education “For the Children”. The trouble was that the higher taxes drove the landed poor along with their children, off of their land and into the wonderfulness of public housing.
The landed poor were independent subsistence small holders living on land that had been in their families for generations.
When they couldn’t pay their taxes their land went up for auction at the courthouse where the courthouse crowd snapped it up for just the back taxes.
And part of it is the Katrina trash that blew in when a certain church gave them the most PRIME acreage in the county. Now they’ve built tax free “parsonages” for all their members.
Hubby confronted one of them who was out begging for donations at Walmart and she swore up and down that she pays taxes. Hubby asked which taxes. She said sales tax. He pressed more and she said Washington. He asked if she paid any other taxes like for her house. She said no. Got’cha. No property taxes. But then we already knew that from the county tax rolls. At least he got his message to the customers coming in and out.
After all this time since Katrina, their kids are still the worst in school.
It gets tiresome seeing reports and articles that are not completely clear like the one posted.
Ditto. The kid that wrote the article probably rents and has no idea what is going on with property taxes to get clarifications from the home owners in the article.
Understood!
Good points all!
Taxes are too high in IL...I won’t be here in a few years...just need to figure out where to go ;)
Some folk hear *LOVE* government indoctrination.
They will fight tooth and nail to exalt government “brain washing” above all things.
Ditto again. Have relatives in the Chicago area that are tired of being tax donkeys. EOT...
Note: Illinois (and California) are the models for what Obama and Hilary see as their dream for the country as a whole.
Although Republicans get elected in the collar counties and downstate, the legislature is almost always solidly Democrat, and likely to remain so indefinitely - and enough Republicans are squishes that for all intents and purposes the state is a one-party enterprise. The GOP governor can try to minimize the damage, but the current one has been powerless to reverse it. A power broker with a safe situation (in the past, a Daley; currently, Mike Madigan) pulls most of the strings.
A reliable core of the dependent class, along with vote fraud and head-up-their-behinds lefties provide the voting bloc required to sustain this fiasco, while the productive move away. Policies that are clearly destructive remain in place because that works for the ruling class.
And that’s what we’ll see if Hilary gets in - a permanent donkey majority with enough wet Republicans to maintain establishment power, with responsible citizens left with nowhere to go (I’d recommend Switzerland).
That’s right! If you have to pay someone to live somewhere, and if you don’t pay they can throw you out and take your place, you don’t own it, they do!
I live in Wheeling, IL. One of the reasons that Illinois has high property tax rates is that Illinois is one of the few states in which voters elect library boards and park boards, all of whom levy property taxes. In almost all other states, libraries and parks are administered by city governments, and that’s more efficient.
Houston’s murder rate went up when a lot of New Orleans residents were relocated there and never left.
In most jurisdictions, if you hit 62 or 65, your property taxes are based on a frozen home evaluation, so their rates don’t go up past that point unless the ad valorum rate goes up.
This means that as the population ages and their home taxes essentially stay flat (more paying the lower rate), cost shifting forces the working families’ tax rates up.
I live in Wheeling, IL. One of the reasons that Illinois has high property tax rates is that Illinois is one of the few states in which voters elect library boards and park boards, all of whom levy property taxes. In almost all other states, libraries and parks are administered by city governments, and that’s more efficient.
I agree about schools. I’ve also lived in CA, CO, KS, AR, OK, and OH. In those states, each school district has at least one high school, at least one junior high, and at least one elem. school. Those districts usually have lower property tax rates than Illinois districts. The majority of those states have higher test scores and/or lower drop-out rates, compared to Illinois.
They need to kick Madigan’s ass out of the assembly. He’s in the way of fixing IL’s problems. Lake County taxes are high. Schools, where your kid learns to do drugs, and all of that damn open space crap. Damn forest preserves. Born and raised in IL, but I had to leave.
Lake county taxes are ridiculous. Rent is high too.
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