Illinois uses the valuation assessment process to make sure each property owner pays a fair share of the real estate taxes requested by local governmental taxing authorities such as school districts, cities and villages, park districts, library districts, forest preserve districts and counties.
The goal is for each property -- or at least each residential property -- outside Cook County to be assessed at a figure equal to one-third of the price it would actually have brought if it had been sold on the open market during the previous three years. For example, a house that would sell for $300,000 in the real world theoretically should be assessed at a taxable value of $100,000.
Agricultural land is assessed differently, and much lower, based on a complicated formula judging how much it could earn when used for farming. Residential properties in Cook County supposedly are assessed at 16 percent of their market value.
The process of deciding how much each property owner should pay occurs in four steps:
The township - Under state law, township assessors must analyze every piece of property in their townships through a "general reassessment" at least once every four years. The last such quadrennial year was 2007. The next will be 2011. Township assessors may do this complete reexamination more often if they have the resources to do so.
The county - Each county's supervisor of assessments looks at specific pieces of land and compares what they sold for in 2005, 2006 and 2007 to what their township assessor had judged they were worth. If the township figures seem too low or too high, the county assigns a multiplier that is applied to every parcel in that township. The goal is to make sure that homeowners in one township don't pay higher taxes to their school district (for example) than people in the same school district who have similar property but whose property values were set by a different township’s assessor.
The state - Officials at the Illinois Department of Revenue also dive into sales-price ratios during the past three years to make sure each county is in the same ballpark. If discrepancies are found, the state assigns a multiplier to all properties within that county. Again, the object is to keep one county's taxpayers from getting an unfair advantage over another county's.
The tax - In late fall, each local governmental taxing body asks for, or "levies," an amount its board members think they need to operate. This is divided by the total assessed value of all properties served by the government to determine a tax rate. That tax rate then is multiplied by each owner's equalized assessed valuation to figure how much he must pay.
Counties under the state’s PTELL (Property Tax Extension Limitation Law) limit how much a levy can increase from one year to the next, and taxes are collected this year from whomever owned the land last year, based on its estimated sales value over the past three years, divided by three.
The goal is for each property -- or at least each residential property -- outside Cook County to be assessed at a figure equal to one-third of the price it would actually have brought if it had been sold on the open market during the previous three years. For example, a house that would sell for $300,000 in the real world theoretically should be assessed at a taxable value of $100,000.
Agricultural land is assessed differently, and much lower, based on a complicated formula judging how much it could earn when used for farming. Residential properties in Cook County supposedly are assessed at 16 percent of their market value.
The process of deciding how much each property owner should pay occurs in four steps:
The township - Under state law, township assessors must analyze every piece of property in their townships through a "general reassessment" at least once every four years. The last such quadrennial year was 2007. The next will be 2011. Township assessors may do this complete reexamination more often if they have the resources to do so.
The county - Each county's supervisor of assessments looks at specific pieces of land and compares what they sold for in 2005, 2006 and 2007 to what their township assessor had judged they were worth. If the township figures seem too low or too high, the county assigns a multiplier that is applied to every parcel in that township. The goal is to make sure that homeowners in one township don't pay higher taxes to their school district (for example) than people in the same school district who have similar property but whose property values were set by a different township’s assessor.
The state - Officials at the Illinois Department of Revenue also dive into sales-price ratios during the past three years to make sure each county is in the same ballpark. If discrepancies are found, the state assigns a multiplier to all properties within that county. Again, the object is to keep one county's taxpayers from getting an unfair advantage over another county's.
The tax - In late fall, each local governmental taxing body asks for, or "levies," an amount its board members think they need to operate. This is divided by the total assessed value of all properties served by the government to determine a tax rate. That tax rate then is multiplied by each owner's equalized assessed valuation to figure how much he must pay.
Counties under the state’s PTELL (Property Tax Extension Limitation Law) limit how much a levy can increase from one year to the next, and taxes are collected this year from whomever owned the land last year, based on its estimated sales value over the past three years, divided by three.
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