Please Explain Illinois Property Taxes to Me (Disabled Persons) (fit in, insurance)

[addsubtract]

I have a very strong chance of getting funding from the USDA Rural Direct Loan program. I have been searching properties in rural Illinois, and I find many that would be affordable. But, the property taxes are simply astronomical, even in the cheaper counties. For instance, I see $80,000 homes in small rural towns with $2,000+ in property taxes.

At first, I thought with the homestead exemption and disability exemption that property taxes would be really reasonable. But while most people wouldn't have the disability exemption, undoubtedly they would have the homestead exemption. I cannot figure out how someone can have around $6,000 deducted from 1/3 of the fair market value on an $80,000 home and get $2,000 in property taxes.

Any insight on this? I'm afraid I'll quickly lose the home to property taxes.

[linicx]

First, some counties are more expensive than others. The age of the house, number of rooms, size of lot, basement, garage, enclosed porch and paved driveway are taxed. A half basement is taxed as a full basement and an enclosed porch is taxed as a room.

Homestead, permanent disability, over 65, and military all qualifty for a reduction. You can also ask for a freeze on your taxes.

To begin with, you must live in your home from January 1 to February 1 of the following year, and it must be your primary residence before you can apply for a reduction.

You need to go to the Assessors Office in the Court House with the address and ask for a print out. They can tell you what the current taxes are. The print out will tell you what apprisal price the taxes are based on. You MUST buy your house below that number if you expect to get taxes reduced. You can often submit a bid $5k under the asking price and get your house.

the next step is for you to have your house re-appraised no more than 90 days before you apply for your reduction. If you have a 100% loan you will have a hard time getting your taxes reduced unless you buy a dog and intend to uptrade it. You Appeal early in the year because it is required. Taxes come out in November and are paid in July and September. for the previous year. The first full year you live in the house you will pay the full tax amount. IF the taxes for the first year are not included with the house, you are stuck. The smart time to buy is October and make sure the taxes are pro-rated. You won't get a $1200 suprise in July like I did.

Also, if you buy in the COUNTY, your tax liability is much smaller because your taxes are NOT supporting city schools.

County taxes are much less because you are not paying for city schools, IF you are diabled do not live too far from city services like hospital, doctors and grocery stores. If you live in the county you will need a 4x4 in the winter if you do not live on a US Highway or heavily traveled IL State Route. You cannot depend upon any other road to be cleared from snow.

I don't know about any other utility but Ameren. If you are diabled they cannot shut off your utilies except gas in the summer. There is a special medical alert tag on your box.

Most county seats in Illinois have a hospital, library, lawyers, doctors, pharmacy, schools and decent internet service. But many of these small towns are losing their hospitals and pharmacies as insurance companies put the squeeze on them. As you move away from the county seat, you get less of everyting as towns are farther apart due to the large number of farms and ranches. Essential services are non-existent. It takes longer for police, fire and ambulance to reach your home. Sometimes you fare better in a small town with few schools that have a viable hospital and great services.

Medical care for my family is very important as there are critical issues. Therefore we purchased on a major route in the city about a mile from the hospital that has ambulance and life flight services. Most of the businesses in this small towns will deliver, pick up your car/mower, service it and return it, deliver medicine and grocriers, lumber, etc.. I did not see this types of services in small towns in other states and that is another eaon why I live where I do. IF you are dependent upon others for basic services, then it is good to be in an area that has them nearby. It is doubly important if you use home health care services like oxygen as most of these companies are based in larger cities that may be 50 miles from where you live.

[chet everett]

Some very unhelpful and frankly incorrect comments above.

The assessment process in all of Illinois is COMPLETELY separate from the levying of taxes. The INDIVIDUAL assessors for EACH TOWNSHIP or COUNTY (varies) can (and do) use a huge range of adjusting the assessed valuation of properties that MIGHT INCLUDE selling price as well as specific formulas about size / features. If there is any state wide law that says unpaved drives are necessarily un-assessed. I think a lot of my neighbors would have torn up their blacktop or concrete years ago-- now it may local custom that in rural area the long gravel drives make the farm-y type properties cheaper, and the luxury get-aways with paved drives are the assessor's personal revenge against those with the dough for such a setup, but I assure you there is no law requiring such behavior.
There is, in general, a lack of consistency from one assessor's practices to another's and because of this (as well the weasly-ness of law makers through out the State) the STATEWIDE Department of Revenue uses something called the "state equalizer". That equalizer is designed to 're do' the decisions of the assessors so that the end result of whatever actions the assessors take will result in the VALUATION being 33 1/3 of the average market value. This is important, but it is FAR from the only thing you need to know.

The amounts of REVENUE that EACH taxing district in Illinois needs has to be set in a 'public hearing'. This is where they decide that the school need a couple of million and the county needs a couple of billion and the mosquito abatement district needs a few hunderd thousand and the township roads dept need a bit and the police pension needs a bit et cetera. Very very important yet almost NO ONE shows up at these public hearings. The end result of the hearing is a "levy request". That gets sent to the County Clerk.

The County Clerk first examines the levy request to make sure that is it conforms to the regulations regarding tax cap and other legal requirements. Then the Clerk's office uses the TOTAL VALUE data from the ASSESSOR and from the taxing bodies to arrive at a TAX RATE. Those rates then get sent to the Treasurer / Collector.

The Treasurer / Collector of each COUNTY then calculates the individual tax bills that reflect the various tax units of which your property is in AS WELL as any exemptions that are registered. Those exemptions are NOT on the 'tax amount owed' but instead are on the backed-out assessed value that is supposed the FULL market value of the property. Pretty paltry for most folks, especially as the numbers are, by this point VERY convoluted and almost no way to trace back the 'equalizer' and such feeds into the exemption exempt with some complex spreadsheets / algebra.

There is NO WAY to escape county taxes. There is also NO WAY to not end up paying taxes to a high schools / elementary district.

You might be live inside a municipality that has rolled up police, fire, water, sewage etc and you just pay to that one entity. In other areas there are separate units for fire, and maybe you don't have any local water or sewer and rely on county for sheriff. That might be a little cheaper, but your are also getting less services. YOU STILL PAY FOR SCHOOLS!!!!

To get some exemptions / freezes /deferrment you have to supply the COUNTY Treasurer / Collector and below certain income limits. Each program is different. There is no correlation between how much your borrow / owe on your mortgage to your eligibility.

Each county has a review process. In some you can request a reassessment or a hearing through a simple note, in others it take a more formal filing. In any case the basis for the change is NOT your ability to pay, but the fairness / uniform / accuracy. That means that if the Assessor made a mistake in describing the property or did not apply the same standards to your house as to other or did something that unfairly resulting in you carry a disproportion tax burden you can get it changed.

I have no idea how property taxes fit in with having health care services, as even ambulance fees are generally charged to the folks that use the ambulance and not paid through property taxes.

[linicx]

It makes no difference how the numbers are crunched or who does it. If you want to know why ask the Assessor. They can tell you whether a certain item used to compile your tax bill is set by the state or not. County taxes are cheaper because you do no pay for city services.

In my county, if I pave my driveway my tax bill increases. The same thing happens if I build a garage. The tax bill increases with every improvement because the property is reassessed with every improvlement. Blackton, gravel, crushed rock - makes no difference, it is not an improvemnt, but a concreted driveway is. If you buy a house with a double car garage and paved driveway, the garaged and driveway was included with the first appraisal. If you build a second garage that is an improvement too. Taxes are reassessed periodically. In my county if you have questions you ask the tax assessor, county treasurer, city building or the county board.

Again, and this has nothing to do with taxation, per se, if you are disabled and need to be near medical services, the trade off is you will pay higher taxes for city property and the convenience of knowing the ambulance is 5 minutes from you and you won't wait 30 minutes on a snowy night. This is the only reason I must live in the city. Where I live the hospital is owned by the city. and my taxes do support it as well as the other city services.

[addsubtract]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful, informative replies. I'm so glad to learn BEFORE I get into a difficult situation that my understanding of how the exemptions and tax rates were applied was incorrect. The point about the tradeoff between lower taxes but less accessible medical services is especially appreciated. I also found some informative articles by googling "calculating" property taxes instead of simply "property taxes Illinois." One article made a very good point that Illinois heavily relies on credits against state income tax for property tax relief. The same article pointed out that people on social security in Illinois are especially hard hit by the property tax because their social security is not subject to state tax. Therefore, they also end up without the intended property tax relief. Learning how the disability exemptions work, providing perhaps $140 off the tax bill, I'm leaning heavily towards buying a home in another state. I will take up the great advice to talk to the assessor's office, though, before making any final decisions.

Thank you to all who took the time to explain and reply!