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Cook County Property Tax Bills Sent Out

CHICAGO (STMW) - Property owners in Cook County, your tax bill is in the mail.

Bills for the county's 1.8 million properties went out Wednesday; the deadline for payment is Dec. 13, according to the Cook County Treasurer's office.

Those who can't wait for the news to arrive in the mail — at the earliest — Friday can go online now to cookcountytreasurer.com to view the bill.

Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan said residents, for the most part, escaped large tax increases — a reflection that the real estate boom is now over.

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"If there's anything we see immediately, it's that the city is fairly flat and suburbs saw just a slight uptick," Houlihan said of the bill increases.

The average tax bill for real estate owners in Chicago rose just under a half percent, while suburban property owners on average will see a 2.5 percent increase, according to Cook County Clerk David Orr's office.

With bills only going out this week, this year marks the latest the second-installment property tax bills have gone out, according to the clerk's office said.

While the state deadline for mailing out second installment property taxes is Aug. 1st, that hasn't been met in Cook County since the 1970s.

Still, candidates running for the retiring Houlihan's seat made the tax bills a central theme in the run-up to the Nov. 2 election.

There was Democratic County Commissioner turned Independent candidate Forrest Claypool who said his opponent, Joe Berrios, part of the three-member property tax appeals board, gave hefty breaks to clout heavy attorneys — most who gave Berrios campaign donations — shifting the tax burden on to everyday home and commercial property owners. In his losing bid, Claypool argued again and again that Berrios and the tax appeals Board of Review was working behind the scenes to delay the bad news of the property tax bills until after the November election.

Berrios, a Democrat who won the seat, said Claypool was responsible for a new county ordinance that shifted more of the tax burden on homeowners and resulted in the undisputed record 430,000 tax appeals filed with the county's Board of Review.

While there are certainly pockets of the city and suburbs where real estate owners will see hikes and declines in their property tax bills, the results of those appeals could play a role in your final bill, said Bill Vaselopulos, director of the Cook County Clerk's Tax Extension Department.

"If your neighbors file appeals and win and you didn't, that could mean you see your tax burden is higher. If you appeal and win, that could mean your neighbors tax burden is higher," he said.

--Chicago Sun-Times, via the Sun-Times Media Wire

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