“WE SUE the city every year,” says a wealthy Chicagoan who lives in an elegant apartment building in Gold Coast, a North side neighbourhood. If his property-tax lawyer manages to knock $100,000 off the bill for the condominium’s owners, as the lawyer has done in past years, he gets to keep $25,000. It is great business for property-tax lawyers—and a great saving for their clients.
The office of Joseph Berrios, the elected value-assessor of Cook County, America’s second-biggest county with 5.2m residents and 1.8m parcels of land, of which Chicago is part, encourages people to challenge their property-tax bills, arguing that it believes “in their importance as the taxpayers’ voice”. According to the Chicago Tribune, which put Jason Grotto, an investigative reporter, on the case for a year, such appeals tripled under Mr Berrios, who took over in 2010. In 2015 appeals concerning 370,000 parcels of land were filed....Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2jf7qCX
EmoticonEmoticon