Has Cook County 2nd installment property tax been mailed

Second installment Cook County property tax bills apparently may be significantly delayed this year—per a Cook County Board of Review commissioner, possibly even six months late.  The delay stems from technological updates at the Cook County Assessor’s Office preventing it from forwarding assessment data to the Cook County Board of Review, which in turn will delay Board of Review certification of assessments and County Treasurer and Clerk finalization of the property tax bills.

By statute, Cook County first installment bills are equal to 55% of the prior year’s total taxes and must be mailed in January. The second installment, to be mailed out by June 30, seeks the remaining amount of taxes due. Although second installment bills have been on time most of the last ten years, a delayed mailing date this year could mean second installment property tax bills would not be due until after the start of 2023, about when taxpayers will pay next year’s first installment property taxes.

Late-mailed bills delaying the collection of property tax revenues have the potential to put a pinch on school district budgets. However, school districts have options for maintaining their short-term cash flow despite a delay in property tax revenues. School boards can manage current cash allocations through interfund loans among their operating funds, or through permanent interfund transfers. Additional cash inflow can be obtained by “anticipating,” or drawing against, the delayed property taxes through issuance of tax anticipation warrants or notes, or obtaining a line of credit, all payable when the property taxes are ultimately received. School boards also can anticipate state aid payments through lines of credit or state aid anticipation certificates and obtain advances of other streams of revenue through personal property replacement tax notes, revenue anticipation notes, or teacher orders. All these alternatives must comply with specific statutory procedures, and consultation with legal counsel is advised. If your district would like to explore short-term cash-flow options for weathering the expected delay in property tax collections, please contact Steve Richart, Heather Brickman, Tony Senagore, or any other attorney in our Corporate Practice Group.

Cook County residents can expect their property tax bills to arrive around Thanksgiving with an estimated return date of Dec. 31, 2022, leaving just enough time for Illinoisans to claim federal deductions, a county spokesperson said.

The second installment of property taxes will likely be mail out more than three months after the bill typically comes due Aug. 1. The delay follows a flood of new appeals and computer complications at the assessor’s office.

Cook County Board spokesman Nick Shields on Sept. 26 said the more than $16 billion in backlogged bills will be collected by “the end of 2022.”

“As each step in the process is completed, we will better understand the bill’s mail date and, subsequently, the due date,” Shields told the Chicago Sun-Times. “We remain confident that their commitment to a due date of 2022 will be realized.”

County leaders said appealing, reviewing and mailing these bills to homeowners could still take more than a month to complete as the county assessor finishes final appeals. Taxpayers will then have a minimum of 30 days to pay once their bill is received.

Issuing these property taxes in late November leaves Cook County homeowners with little more than a month to pay the taxes and claim the local deductions on their 2022 individual federal tax returns.

Second installments were paid by Aug. 1 in every year since 2011, until the onset of the pandemic. The first installment of property tax bills in 2023 is expected to be due March 1.

Illinois was home to the nation’s second-highest property taxes in 2021. Now rampant inflation is giving local taxing bodies the power to raise rates by 5%.

Property owners face another tax threat on Nov. 8: Amendment 1.

If property taxes simply continue to increase at their long-run average rate, the typical homeowner will pay over $2,100 in additional property taxes during the next four years.

Amendment 1 would likely accelerate that by expanding the bargaining power of government union bosses to negotiate over a near endless array of subjects, ultimately forcing residents to pay the bill for costly contract concessions that carry more weight than state law.

With decades-high inflation already raising property taxes on Illinoisans, adding the Amendment 1 tax burden to the load local bodies are expected to impose would only push more residents out of their homes or out of the state.

Have the Cook County property tax bills been mailed?

Are Cook County property taxes delayed?

What is going on with Cook County property tax?

Will county property tax due dates 2022?