The second installment of Cook County property taxes should have been paid Aug. 1. The county can’t get the calculations completed, so the bills are on hold.
Cook County residents were supposed to pay their second property tax installments on Aug. 1, but the county hasn’t been able to calculate the final amounts and billions worth of tax bills haven’t been mailed.
The due date has been rescinded until the county can fix the issue.
Cook County administrators don’t know when the second set of bills will go out. They blame a 10-year-old contract with a Texas-based company called Tyler Technologies for the delay.
“The contract was inked by the county in 2015 and was supposed to modernize the property tax billing system within three to five years,” Fox 32 reported.
But repeated mistakes have flawed the system to the point that taxpayers could not expect to get correct bills were they mailed at present. The county finds itself unable to perform the basic function of tax collection, leaving taxpayers in limbo.
The Cook County treasurer’s website features a banner indicating tax amounts have not been finalized and bills have not been mailed out.
Illinois residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation. Illinois Policy Institute research shows Cook County property tax bills have risen 78% since 2007, despite median property values rising just 7.3%.
The treasurer reported last year’s collections were $706 million more, totaling $18.3 billion for the 2023 tax year that was collected in 2024. That 4% increase marked at least the 30th year Cook County property taxes have increased.
While it is nice taxpayers get to hold onto their money for a little while longer, you have to wonder about the hidden costs if taxing bodies need to borrow to fill the gap. Cook County leaving billions uncollected is sort of like closing the store because the cash register is broken – a business would never let that situation last.
