When a Cook County business successfully appeals their property taxes, the county just shifts that burden to homeowners. This meant an extra $2 billion in residential property taxes instead of a lower property tax levy.
Cook County homeowners paid $1.9 billion more in property taxes over two years, because commercial property owners appealed their bills and won.
A report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas reveals between 2021 and 2023, businesses in Cook County, which already face some of the highest commercial property taxes in the nation, successfully appealed their property assessments and reduced their collective tax burden by more than $3.3 billion.
The same report shows businesses in Cook County successfully appealed their property assessments and reduced their collective tax burden by more than $3.3 billion.
But it didn’t shrink the amount of money local governments collect. Under Illinois’s levy-based tax system, taxing bodies decide how much money they will raise first, and then the tax rate adjusts to meet that amount. When commercial property owners win appeals, the taxes still have to be paid, and the burden shifts to everyone else.
According to the findings, from 2021 to 2023 the cost was largely picked up by homeowners, who paid $1.9 billion more over the same three-year period. That means the property tax appeals system didn’t just reduce commercial bills – it transferred most of the responsibility directly onto families who are already struggling under some of the nation’s highest property tax rates.
Businesses have every right to appeal their bills, they pay some of the highest in the nation. But if property tax bills are off by the billions, it’s a sign the government needs to spend less before adding billions to the burden to homeowners.
This wasn’t a one-time shift. Businesses appealed their assessments 64% of the time, while homeowners appealed only 27% of the time. The disparity grows when looking at neighborhood income levels.
In higher-income communities, nearly 46% of properties filed appeals. In lower-income communities, just 11% appealed. Those with legal resources and better access to information are more likely to challenge their assessments and win. Those without pay more as a result.
These findings coincide with long-standing concerns about property tax appeals. In 2023, the final year covered in the data, former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke was convicted for pressuring businesses into using his private law firm for tax appeals, and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan faced trial on charges related to his tax appeals firm as well.
Separately, a Cook County Board of Review staffer was sentenced to three months in prison for taking bribes to fix property tax appeals. These cases highlight the inherent conflict of interest when lawmakers themselves profit from the appeals process – a problem Illinois has yet to address despite proposals to bar state lawmakers from working as property tax attorneys.
Their cases serve as reminders that the high taxes levied by Illinois counties have frequently made taxes more about who you know than what you owe. Appeals are supposed to ensure fairness in assessments, not redistribute billions of dollars from businesses to homeowners. As long as property tax appeals result in such dramatic shifts, ordinary Cook County residents will continue to bear the cost.
Property tax fairness shouldn’t depend on hiring a lawyer – it should be built into the system itself. Lawmakers should focus on right-sizing government and reducing spending to deliver real tax relief in Cook County and communities across Illinois.
