Jim M.: Property taxes were the number one driving force for our move [out of state].

Jim M. owns a 3,592 square foot, 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom Cary home that is currently assessed at $293,484.

“We went from somewhere around $400 a month to $1,000 a month,” Jim said. “That comes out of your discretionary income. It meant we had less money to save or invest or buy other products. It significantly impacted our discretionary income.”

Jim took possession of the home in 2006 when it was worth around $430,500, or $539,062 in today’s dollars. He has paid $149,809 in property taxes since 2006, more than 34 percent of the original value of his home. He sold the home in 2018.

“When your property taxes triple over 12 years and you don’t see any house appreciation, that’s a problem,” Jim said. “Property taxes were the number one driving force for our move [out of state].”

“When your property taxes triple over 12 years and you don’t see any house appreciation, that’s a problem,” Jim said. “Property taxes were the number one driving force for our move [out of state].”

Jim was paying $12,507 per year in property taxes on his home, about 4.2 percent of the McHenry County Assessor claimed value of $293,484.

“The taxes are wasted,” Jim said. “All the taxing bodies like in Illinois do not exist here in Tennessee. I’m paying $1,400 property taxes compared to $13,000 in Illinois for a similar house.”

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.

“The one percent cap would help, but the problems [in Illinois] are so much deeper,”

Jim said. “The money has not to come from somewhere. They have a redundancy in layers of government and they need to fix that. The problems are so deep in Illinois that something has got to be done immediately. I don’t regret living Illinois for a second.”

If Jim lived in Indiana the most he could be charged in property taxes would be $2,934 per year or $9,573 less than what he currently pays in Illinois.

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