Trevor B.: It doesn’t make sense financially to stay here once our kids are out of the public school system.

Trevor B. owns a 3,300 square foot, 5-bedroom, 4-bathroom Arlington Heights home that is currently assessed at $636,720.

“We bought the house knowing we were going to add on to it,” Trevor said. “We doubled the square footage, so we naively thought that would just double the taxes.”

Trevor took possession of the home in 2004 when it was worth around $299,000, or $399,108 in today’s dollars. He has paid $124,380 in property taxes since 2004, more than 41 percent of the original value of his home.

“We won’t be able to stay there once [our kids] are out of school,” Trevor said. It’s really frustrating. It doesn’t make sense financially to stay here once our kids are out of the public school system.”

“We won’t be able to stay there once [our kids] are out of school,” Trevor said. It’s really frustrating. It doesn’t make sense financially to stay here once our kids are out of the public school system.”

Trevor is currently paying $17,389 per year in property taxes on his home, about 2.7 percent of the Cook County Assessor claimed value of $636,720.

“The whole process is flawed on how they calculate the taxes,” Trevor said. “It should be illegal how they come up with this.” 

Indiana has a hard 1 percent cap on property taxes. This means local governments are not allowed under state law to charge homeowner’s more than 1 percent of their home’s assessed value per year. The average property tax rate for the state of Indiana is 0.89 percent. Meanwhile, the average property tax rate in Illinois is 2.3 percent.

If Trevor lived in Indiana the most he could be charged in property taxes would be $6,367 per year or $11,022 less than what he currently pays in Illinois.

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