Homeowners shocked by tax hikes should read bills to find out where their money goes

By Maria Pappas

Record-high increases in property tax bills have angered many Cook County property owners.

My office has released an analysis of the nearly 1.8 million tax bills. It showed that in Chicago the median tax bill jumped 16.7%, the largest percentage increase in at least 30 years.

And it wasn’t just in Chicago. South and southwest suburban homeowners saw a median increase of just under 20% to $6,117. Median bills for north and northwest suburban property owners increased by 15.7% to $7,008.

Those spikes are hitting homeowners already dealing with higher prices for cars, insurance, medical care and groceries. Many fear they can no longer afford their taxes and wonder what they can do.

There’s one thing every property owner can do: Read the bill! Second Installment 2024 bills are online at cookcountytreasurer.com and were mailed November 14. On the bill you’ll see a section called “Where Your Money Goes”. It shows which taxing bodies are getting your money and how much. It also shows if your taxes went up or down and compares your latest bill to the previous year’s.

If you want even more detail, just go to cookcountytreasurer.com, click on the purple box and enter your address or PIN. Then navigate to the left side and click where it says, “Where Your Money Goes”. This reveals the same chart that’s on the bill but also lets you access the websites of taxing bodies, where you can get more information.

I did this so you can become informed about which taxing bodies are behind the increases, so you’ll know which agencies to hold accountable. Each taxing district holds regular public meetings. As a taxpayer, you have the right to comment publicly and vote on certain items often involving how your tax dollars are spent.

If more people questioned their elected officials about where their money goes, government agencies might work harder to curb spending.

The second installment due date is December 15, 2025. The Cook County Treasurer’s Office offers several convenient payment options: You can pay for free online at cookcountytreasurer.com using your bank account or by mail using the return envelope included with your bill. You can pay in person at our downtown office at 118 N. Clark St., Room 112 or in any Chase Bank branch or at more than 100 participating community banks. Lastly you can pay with a credit card, but you’ll have to pay a 2.1 % convenience fee to the card company.

And although paying taxes never really feels “convenient,” I hope knowing where your money goes makes it a little easier to deal with the “inconvenient truth” that for most of us 2024 taxes went up.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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