Don’t cheer for reduced assessment

Don’t cheer for reduced assessment

After many years of fighting the Bloomingdale Township assessor and DuPage County assessor, I finally reduced my home’s actual value. This might seem to be good, but please don’t cheer. Even though the value has been reduced, I still pay more taxes than I did under my appeal.

You may ask, how can this be true. To make up for lost property values, declining homes and bankruptcies local taxing bodies increase their demands on the homeowner by raising the equalization factor. Please check your tax bill to see these individual increases. My equalization factors increased from 7.5 percent (2009), 8.6 percent (2010), and 9.5 percent (2011). This law allows these bloated taxing bodies to force the local homeowner to unfairly carry the burden to maintain government bureaucracies. This included all these tax appeal boards and employees as well.

In this economy, this system of taxation is cruel punishment to the local homeowners who keep the economy afloat.

Please change this inequitable system.

Charles Elwert

Addison