Posted on 10/18/2015 4:11:59 PM PDT by george76
Illinois property taxes are now so high that they are equivalent to a second mortgage, according to a new study from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, a Washington-based tax-research and -education center.
The report, which shows the effective property-tax rates in each state, ranks Illinois as the second-highest property-tax state in the U.S. The top spot goes to New Jersey, where the effective property-tax rate is 2.38 percent, barely higher than Illinois’ 2.32 percent.
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An effective property-tax rate of 2.32 percent means that if a typical Illinois homebuyer purchases a home at age 30 and lives there until the age of 79 (the average American life expectancy), that homeowner will pay more to the government for the privilege of owning a home in Illinois than the home is actually worth. If that homeowner lives in that home a few years beyond age 73, the property taxes paid will have surpassed the home’s value. For example, an Illinoisan who buys a $200,000 house will pay $4,640 in property taxes each year, or $46,400 per decade. Owning an Illinois home for a little more than four decades means that person pays property taxes equal to the entire value of the home to the local government.
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoispolicy.org ...
Somebody has to pay for feeding and housing all those gibsmedat in the oh-so-great city.
Exile all those unwilling to work for a living.
“Exile”?!?!?! HELL NO. They (Chicago) made ‘em, they keep ‘em.
Seems to me that the good folks in Illinois and New Jersey deserve the screwing they’re getting because they keep voting the “free lunch crowd” back into office. At least we voted for Proposition 13 here in California decades ago, so our property taxes cannot be more than 1% of the assessed value at the outset and they cannot be raised more than 2% (of the taxes themselves) each year. But it does really piss off the RATs here and they keep trying to figure out a way around it to no avail.
It's why I see a flood of folks from NJ/NY that come here, especially after retirement. I hear too many stories about paying $1,000 per month in just property taxes.
And look at what they are getting (or not getting) for all of those "contributions" to their state government.
How bout them taxes in TEXAS! That “land of the free” state. Yee Haw, TEXAS is #1, but then, everything is BIG in TEXAS! The other thing thanks again to prop 13 here in California, business properties have the same taxing mechanism as do residential properties. When I took economics in college, we were told that property taxes were the most regressive and unfair of all taxes levied by government. They force retired people out of the family home.
“And look at what they are getting (or not getting) for all of those “contributions” to their state government. “
Yeah, those poor bastards can’t even get paid their lottery winnings because the state has spent the money that was supposed to be “set aside” to pay winners, Kinda like Social Security.
California’s prop 13 is what allows me to remain in California.
My home has been paid off for over ten years. I pay a little over $1,200 a year property tax. I figure about $100 month housing cost, I could not rent for that little.
I am surprised the politicians have not tried to overturn prop 13, I suspect they know that would be the tipping point and begin the revolution.
I live in what’s called a “Gold Town” in VT, my tax rate is 3.48%.
My property tax is a little less than it was 23 years ago when I moved in here. I’ve made many improvements. I get a senior discount and live in a solid red Illinois county.
Yeah, Texas has no state income tax and its darn cheap to tag a vehicle in Texas too. I know because thousands of Kansas residents are driving around Kansas with Texas tags on their vehicles.
You also have to take house prices into consideration. A small house in NJ, within commuting distance of New York, still costs $300-400K, and good houses cost over $1 million. So the absolute property tax in NJ is much higher than in Texas or Illinois.
Not only does Texas have the highest tax rate, they also value property at outrageously inflated prices. In just the last 9 years, land values have gone up nearly 6 fold. That’s just crazy. I have an old run down small 1950s crappy house on a small lot in the country but it’s valued at three times what it would be priced at in most other states. Property taxes have increased 10% every year but two. Our income certainly hasn’t risen that much - it’s gone down. When we first moved in, two weeks of income paid the taxes. Today, we’re paying over 3 months of income in property taxes.
The other bad thing about the increasing value of our homes is that our insurance keeps going up because of the purported replacement value. Mandatory wind insurance for those of us on the Gulf is also increasing, in spite of the fact that we haven’t had a hurricane in eight years now. My insurance and taxes cost me almost $800 a month - more than some people in other places pay for a house payment.
The percent map doesn’t mean a lot. I moved from Minnesota to Nebraska about about 35 years ago. The amount of property tax that I paid dropped after the move. However, the tax rate in Nebraska was higher (like it still is now according to the map). The difference was that a house cost twice as much in Minnesota as a similar one did in Nebraska. So even at a lower tax rate, the tax amount was larger.
Along with the cut in the State income tax rate in Nebraska, I got a significant cut in taxes by making that move. Besides, Minnesota as too liberal 35 years ago. I shudder to think what it is like now.
Since I can buy a decent home in a nice neighborhood (and isn’t a 1 hour commute) for $200K, I still pay less property taxes than for a comparable home in CA.
Our house is down to about 250k and we pay 7k taxes. In 1980 it was $1400.00!
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