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He's at it again.
In this week's Works, I wrote about a recent press conference where Mayor Daley denounced the county assessor's office and called for widespread "corrections" to property tax assessments.
Now, in today's Tribune, there's an op-ed by the mayor that tells a few more whoppers about his role in our property tax system.
For starters, he claims that he "proposed the original plan that became the 7 percent cap on the taxable value of homes." Not only did Daley not propose the original plan (Cook County assessor Jim Houlihan did), he did very little of the lobbying needed for the watered-down version that passed.
But the big daddy of tall tales in his editorial is this one: "Even with the increase in Chicago property taxes in this year's budget, city property taxes have risen a average of only 1.5 percent a year since I've been mayor."
The only reason Daley can make this claim is because he's not counting hikes in school taxes and, more to the point, he doesn't regard TIFs as property taxes that residents have to pay. Instead, the mayor's official policy is that TIFs dollars are created by some sort of magical City Hall money-making machine at no expense to taxpayers.
But as Cook County clerk David Orr's TIF report makes clear, that's just not so. In 2004 Chicagoans paid $328 million in property taxes to the TIFs; in '05 the TIF property tax take went up to $386 million, and in '06 it rose to $500 million. I suspect the TIF tax surpassed $600 million in 2007, but we won't know for sure until Orr's office completes the official tally in the summer.
Once you factor in the TIFs you get a more realistic idea of why your property tax bill is rising. In 2005, taxpayers paid about $719 million in taxes to the city and another $386 million to the TIFs for a total of about $1.105 billion. In 2006, they paid about $736 to the city and $500 million to the TIFs, for a total of $1.236 billion. That's an $131 million increase, or 12 percent.
In time the amount of property taxes Mayor Daley collects through TIFs -- while claiming you're not really paying into them -- will exceed the amount he officially acknowledges you are paying. We'll be paying twice as much in property taxes as the city acknowledges we are.
It's one thing for Mayor Daley to dwell in a dream world where property taxes aren't really property taxes. But the rest of us still have to pay the bill.
In Daley we trust.
If you're a property owner, you can answer your own question.
1. Place your tax bills from the past, oh, 20 years, (or whenever you first purchased real property, if you haven't owned real property in this city for 20 years).
2. Calculate the percentage of each year's increases.
3. Add these percentages and divide by the number of years you've paid property taxes.
That will give you your average, per year increase.
Or, if you prefer, take the amount of your first year's tax bill, subtract this amount from your most recent year's tax bill, take the difference and calculate what percentage this difference is between the first year's tax amount and the most recent year's tax amount.
Both percentages will be positive numbers.
Depending on where your real property is located, some will be 2 digit percentages and some will be 3 digit percentages.
Few, if any, will be single digit percentages.
Of course, there will be exceptions to the above, if you happen to be one of those individuals who've been blessed with the 'right connections'.
Most of us are not so blessed.
Because, unlike King Richard, the Liar-Hearted, most of us are honest.
Liars use numbers to tell lies with.
The truth is to be found in our pocketbooks.
1. Total property taxes imposed upon city and county property owners.
2. Individual property assessed values, upon which the actual amount an individual property owner's tax bill's amount is based.
The first amount determines how much we, as property owners, will collectively be taxed.
The second, individual amounts determine how much each individual's tax bill will be.
So, we see that, while the first number, the total tax amount the city and county is collectively requiring all property owners to pony up each year, may not appear to have increased significantly, (though Daley's lies concerning the percentage increases during his tenure grossly, and falsely, minimize their size), a large percentage of the verifiable increases have resulted from the abuse and misuse of TIF's, as well as the traditionally bloated and wasteful mismanagement of our city and county governmental functions.
The second, individual numbers are the most burdensome and harmful ones.
As a property owners' property value increases, (said value having only two, potential benefits to the property's owner; one being if they sell their property and the other being if they borrow on their increased equity), their share of the collective tax burden increases, often dramatically.
Since a given property owner's share of the collective tax burden is based directly on the assessed, fair market value of their property, their property tax bill increases, despite the absence of the property owner garnering any automatic benefit from same.
Unless a property owner chooses, and is able, to borrow, (acquire debt), on the newly increased assessed market value of their property, or chooses to sell their property, the property owner enjoys no benefit from the increased assessed value and incurs an actual deficit, ie., a higher tax bill imposed upon same.
This effectively either forces property owners to take more debt upon their property or sell their property.
While this effect may be a welcome one to the money-lenders, the real-estate speculators and building contractors, as well as the many city and county governmental elements who profit and benefit from the 'good will' of same, it is unquestionably not as welcome an effect for those property owners who wish to remain residents of this city and county.
Taxes are supposed to be imposed solely for the purpose of financing essential services and functions only government can provide to, and for, it's citizens.
Certainly not as a force for enriching the money-lenders, real-estate speculators, building contractors and the city and county governmental elements being 'supported' by same.
The Tar and Feathering Party is long overdue.
The Real reason why taxes are high is revealed in the Trib series. TIFS are just as bad but Tifs are not driving up the assessements like spot zones do. Thank your local alderman.
"While this effect may be a welcome one to the money-lenders, the real-estate speculators and building contractors, as well as the many city and county governmental elements who profit and benefit from the 'good will' of same, it is unquestionably not as welcome an effect for those property owners who wish to remain residents of this city and county."
and
"Certainly not as a force for enriching the money-lenders, real-estate speculators, building contractors and the city and county governmental elements being 'supported' by same."
and
"The Real reason why taxes are high is revealed in the Trib series.
TIFS are just as bad but Tifs are not driving up the assessements like spot zones do.
Thank your local alderman."
Two separate, but intimately connected issues.
1. The total, authentic tax burden imposed upon property owners, (and the uses to which this total tax burden are put.).
2. The individual property owners' skewed and unfair personal shares of the total, collective property tax burden, based on the current system of property assessment and the basing of the property tax burdens solely on the assessed, fair market values of same.
The first issue is about the misuses, abuses and mismanagements, both lawful and unlawful, of our tax dollars, both gleaned from property taxation and from a myriad of byzantine taxes, fines and fees.
The second issue is the fairness and harmful effects, imposed upon property owners, of all types, (but primarily home owners), inherent in the present system of property taxation and manipulated by those we've entrusted with the authority to not abuse.
The gains enjoyed by the money-lenders, real-estate speculators and building contractors, let alone the undue influence on our elected public officials, those they employ, and their 'insider' associates, (often overlapping groups of individuals), are the driving forces behind the current, sad state of affairs.
Is this really the government we want?
So, may I presume that HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT substantially resonates for you?
With all reasonable and thoughtful exceptions a given?
Is this "burn the assessor" rhetoric more of the same time-honored Daley teflon-ism or is it week-after retribution for Houlihan's support of a Berrios Challenger? Did the party give Daley something to sign and read at a press conference?
"Did the party give Daley something to sign and read at a press conference?"
When don't they?
Here's why. Depending on when a TIF was implemented and how much a property has appreciated since, that can mean that half or more of a property's tax dollars have been sucked into this unauditable black hole of Daley's design.
Your tax dough is being diverted, literally snatched away. If a person did the equivalent of this to you on the street, you'd call the cops. You'd say you were mugged. Is it still unclear to anyone why transit, education, roads, just about everything is such a frickin' mess? Really?G
So, may I presume that HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT substantially resonates for you?
With all reasonable and thoughtful exceptions a given?
"We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control," he said in a speech at a General Motors plant in Janesville. "The fallout from the housing crisis that's cost jobs and wiped out savings was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington."
The Housing crisis was caused by greedy friends of his like Rezko and developers.
There is no housing crisis.
There are individuals who, lacking in basic intelligence, committed themselves to borrowing, under terms which they did not understand, more money than they could repay under those terms.
Their presumed lack of understanding the complete nature of those terms resulted in their being 'surprised', 'shocked' and 'dismayed', when the exact nature of those terms became apparent to them.
Were those terms fair?
Were those terms presented to the borrowers in a manner providing said borrowers the opportunity to understand said terms?
Did the borrowers of said monies agree to those terms?
Were, in fact, those monies loaned to said borrowers, said monies which were used to purchase real property, said real property being the collateral securing the repayment of said loans?
And, did those borrowers, of said monies, used to purchase said real properties, under the agreed upon terms, in fact, fail to, at some point in time, meet and satisfy the conditions of their loans, said failures resulting in the events described as the 'housing crisis' above?
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
It's not rocket science, it's basic mathematics.
Plus, it's basic supply and demand, not only based on the quantity of the supply and demand, but on the quality of what is desired versus it's supply.
If one considers the nature of the 'housing market', in all it's aspects, one can understand that the phrase 'You can't cheat an honest man' rings so very true.
To put it simply, if you, the prospective home buyer, cannot afford to purchase a property, don't commit yourself to a loan far beyond your ability to repay.
Don't buy a home with the primary goal in your mind of 'flipping' it for profit.
Don't borrow more money than you can reasonably expect to be able to, under the terms of your loan, repay.
Don't be the fool that the money-lenders make their money off of.
Buy a home in an area you can afford.
Live in that home as if it will be the only home you will ever have.
Bring to the area, that home is located in, your values, your commitment, your willingness to work and maintain your home, and you'll increase the quality of whatever area you've been able to afford to purchase your home in.
Obama isn't the Candy Man.
Nobody is.
People have to use the brains God gave them to think with.
People have to understand that they are responsible for the actions they take, or fail to take, and the results of said actions/inactions.
Think.
It's not all that painful, once you get used to it.
Orion agrees with you.
Do you feel sort of soiled?
Should you light up a square?
Better make that appointment with your proctologist or gynecologist, whichever the case may be........