Chicago’s South Suburbs pay Higher Property tax Rates

Chicago enjoys the lowest effective property tax rates in the region, but economically struggling south suburbs bear an unequally heavier burden, for commercial and residential real estate.

Harvey, for example, had the highest residential tax rate in 2022, at 4.74 percent, and Chicago Heights was second, at 3.2 percent, Crain’s reported, citing the Civic Federation. Chicago’s rate of 1.69 percent was the lowest among the 12 Cook County communities that the government watchdog group analyzed.

Tax bills in the southern suburbs came in with a median increase of almost 20 percent last year, the largest hike in three decades, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas found. In several majority-Black suburbs, including Harvey, tax bills increased 30 percent.

“The south suburbs are the poster child for inequitable property taxation in Illinois, and now it’s worse than ever for homeowners,” she told the outlet last month.

Commercial property owners in Chicago saw an effective tax rate of 4.29 percent, compared to a staggering 17.41 percent in Harvey and 12.1 percent in Chicago Heights.

Over a 10-year period from 2013 to 2022, Chicago’s residential tax rate increased by 2.2 percent, while its commercial tax rate saw a larger jump of 11.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Harvey saw a 4.4 percent increase in its commercial tax rate over the past decade, and Chicago Heights’ spiked 12.1 percent.

Although residential tax rates in these suburbs have decreased significantly over the same period — 42.5 percent in Chicago Heights and 41.4 percent in Harvey — the relief is not enough to close the gap between them and Chicago. It is getting smaller, however.

“The differential between Chicago and the suburbs has returned to closer to what it was prior to the disruption of the Great Recession in the 2000s,” Ferguson said.

— Andrew Terrell