It might be home sweet home to some, but to others, Illinois is “home overtaxed home,” the Illinois Opportunity Project contended recently in announcing its support for a Homeowners Defense Association (HDA) intiative.
HDA, whose goal is to teach homeowners about property taxes, is pushing for what it calls a more logical and equitable formula for calculating property taxes. The Chicago-based group is petitioning for a referendum initiative that would put a cap on residential property taxes at 1 percent of the full cash value of the property, the project reported.
The Illinois Opportunity Project leadership team includes Dan Proft, who is also a principal of Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.
The HDA wants citizens to fight to make sense of the equations used to determine property taxes throughout neighborhoods in Illinois by circulating petitions throughout the region. The group says a home’s tax price should follow a tried-and-true formula by a tax assessor: Multiply the value of a home by a standard rate to figure the annual tax bill.
The problem, according to the Illinois Opportunity Project, is the usage of arbitrary factors that result in Illinois having an eye-popping 2.3 percent tax rate as a percentage of home value compared with a property tax rate as a percentage of home value of .9 percent, the nation’s average.
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