Bill headed to Pritzker could set up a wave of annual property tax hikes by forcing other taxpayers to make up for over-assessment errors

Legislation headed to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk could set the stage for a wave of annual real estate tax increases across Illinois by allowing local taxing bodies the ability to make up for refunds they’ve issued due to erroneous property over-assessments by shifting those costs onto the rest of their taxpayers. In Cook County alone, refunds issued by local taxing bodies during the 2020 calendar year in categories covered by the legislation total $176.3 million — an amount roughly in line with annual refunds issued since 2015, based on statistics obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the county treasurer’s office.

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