Chadstroma
Footballguy
Between Chicago, Cook County and Illinois- this has to be the highest taxation in the country. #2 highest property taxes (maybe they are trying to snag that #1 spot?) in the nation, the highest sales tax in the nation and not cheap income tax (roughly middle in range in the country). More taxes on the way and the basically no one seems to be against the taxes as long as you tax the 'other' guy.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/544/article/p2p-84465487/Council support for Emanuel tax hikes shows city's geographic, racial divides
John Byrne, Bill Ruthhart
5:36 am, September 19, 2015
As Mayor Rahm Emanuel prepares to ask the City Council for a series of tax increases both big and small, he's finding that support from aldermen in many cases is breaking down along Chicago's economic, geographic and racial divides.
City Council members representing the South and West Sides are more comfortable with the idea of voting for a record property tax hike than a new garbage pickup fee. The homes in those wards tend to be worth less, so the property tax bite would be smaller, and Emanuel is trying to get Springfield to shield people whose homes are worth less than $250,000 from the effects. A garbage fee, on the other hand, could mean $11 a month out of every homeowner's pocket.
The dynamic is the opposite for aldermen in more affluent parts of the city. Homes tend to be more valuable downtown and on the North Side, so a property tax hike hits harder, and taxpayers there would not be afforded as much protection under Emanuel's plan. A garbage fee doesn't cut as deep, and many residents live in high-rises that already pay private waste haulers.
For Emanuel, the differing political perspectives require a balancing act as he tries to collect the 26 votes for approval. The mayor needs the property tax to make a massive increase in police and firefighter pension payments, but he also wants the garbage fee to help close a year-to-year budget gap. Adjusting the size of each tax hike could prove key.
In a testament to the difficulty of putting together a coalition of aldermen to support a spending package that will hit Chicagoans' pocketbooks harder than any in recent memory, the Emanuel administration was working Friday to make changes to the monthly garbage fee proposal to exempt senior citizens in a bid to bring members of the City Council's black caucus and others opposed back into the fold. The move came as the mayor unveiled another proposal to raise the cost of ride-booking and taxi rides by 50 cents and increase the base cab fare by 15 percent.
Still, the property tax hike and new garbage fee remained at the forefront of the political calculus for aldermen ahead of Emanuel's budget speech Tuesday.
"My colleagues in the (black) caucus, they understand — no one likes any of the taxes — but they understand the property tax can be fairly distributed across the board, and those that are probably best able to pay usually can pay their property taxes, as opposed to the other fees that we're talking about," said South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th. "So from talking to most of my colleagues, the consensus is that they'd rather live with a fair-sized property tax increase."
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly is finding it more difficult to vote for a steep property tax hike.
"A lot of people assume that downtown residents are multimillionaires who are taking baths in nickels and dimes, and that's just not the case," said Reilly, 42nd. "There's certainly some very wealthy people who live downtown, but I'd argue there's at least as many or more who made an investment here decades ago, have since retired and are now living on fixed income. Those are the constituents I hear from, sharing their concerns about a gigantic property tax increase, and I think there are legitimate concerns about whether folks will be able to afford to stay in the units they own."
Property tax hikes like the historically huge one Emanuel is poised to spring on Chicago residents traditionally are seen as a third rail of the city's politics, a vote aldermen desperately try to avoid taking because of the outraged reaction they're certain to get from voters.
Emanuel has been considering a property tax increase of $450 million to $550 million, and how much owners would pay depends on how much their home is worth. If a $500 million property tax increase had been in place this year, the tax bill on a home worth $250,000 would have increased by about $470. On a home worth $500,000, the bill would have increased by about $995.
As part of his move to make a property tax increase "fair and equitable," Emanuel is seeking an increase from the state on the size of the homestead exemption that essentially would freeze or lower city taxes in the short term for homes valued at less than $250,000.
To illustrate why it's easier for some South and West side aldermen to vote for a property tax hike, consider the case of Sawyer. The black caucus chairman lives in the 6th Ward, which is centered on middle-class Chatham, a South Side bastion of police officers, firefighters and other city workers. Yet Sawyer said his home is assessed below $250,000, which would make him eligible for the freeze.
Even if Emanuel's bid to get Gov. Bruce Rauner to raise the homestead exemption fails, Sawyer still would expect his property tax increase to be less than a homeowner whose property has a higher assessed value.
West Side Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, said it will be tougher for African-American aldermen to sell constituents on an $11-a-month garbage collection fee than the property tax increase.
"However, you're still dealing with the stigma of a tax increase, so it's six in one hand, a half-dozen in the other," Ervin said. "But at the end of the day, I think piling on a garbage fee on top of a property tax increase would disproportionately impact most African-American communities."
And freshman West Side Ald. Michael Scott Jr., 24th, said residents already feel as though they're facing death by a thousand cuts with red light camera and speed camera tickets, increased water and sewer fees and other small levies that help the city's bottom line but don't offer them tangible benefits. Scott said he's worried about presenting those constituents a budget built on garbage fees and other taxes that quickly add up for people struggling to make ends meet.
"What I am hearing is, they don't want to be nickel-and-dimed, and if we're going to go with a property tax raise, let's make sure they're informed, let's make sure they're educated and let's make sure we're able to give them more services when we're raising our taxes," Scott said. "They're always complaining about the lack of services in our communities, especially the communities of color."
Aldermen representing areas where property is worth more are looking at the revenue options from the other side of the coin.
Lakeview Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, said it will be difficult for many aldermen to vote for such a large tax increase when the money will be dedicated to making pension payments and not new projects or services they can highlight for their constituents.
Tunney, who owns the Ann Sather restaurants, said he opposes Emanuel's push for a property tax exemption to shield some homeowners because it would hurt owners of commercial property who would have to shoulder more of the tax burden.
Commercial properties are taxed at 2 1/2 times the rate of residences, so the owner of a commercial property worth $250,000 this year received a tax bill of nearly $11,600. That bill would go up by about $1,300 with a $500 million property tax increase, even before the cost of the increase was further shifted onto business owners by the mayor's homestead exemption.
"That is not attractive to me," Tunney said. "I get the social good, but that's not appropriate, and wouldn't be appropriate to a vast majority of my property owners."
Freshman Ald. Brian Hopkins won election in the new 2nd Ward that twists through several tony North Side neighborhoods on a platform that included strict opposition to a property tax increase. He said he's sticking to that position for now even as Emanuel, who got 77 percent of the vote in the ward in the April runoff election, looks for aldermanic support for his budget plan.
"The 2nd Ward is among a number of wards that is among donor wards," Hopkins said. "They generate much more in revenue for all sources for the city's operating coffers than they get back in services. You're already contributing more than your fair share when you realize that, so there's a reluctance to contribute even more, when you look at it that way."
A sign that Emanuel is lobbying aldermen more aggressively than with past budgets and tax hikes is his discussions with the council's progressive caucus. That group of aldermen has included some of the mayor's fiercest elected critics.
Northwest Side Ald. John Arena, 45th, said the group has had two face-to-face meetings with Emanuel so far and is encouraged that the mayor is seeking the tax exemption, which is consistent with their push to make whatever revenue is raised weigh more heavily on the city's wealthiest.
"We didn't have that conversation the last four years, which is a big part of the issues that I had, but now we do and that's a good thing and I'm optimistic about that," said Arena, 45th. "I'm encouraged that we're being heard. I think our ideas are valid, and the fact that he's listening shows he's grown in the position, which I appreciate."
It's either that or those 1000 people need to come up with a lot more $ to pay taxes. What a cesspool.
