Fight High Taxes in Round Lake

[tcs1366]

also -- when you get your bill, look to see where that money is going... Mostly to the schools.
The State certainly isn't paying what they used to, the money has to come from somewhere.... People want good schools, but then they dont want the higher tax bills.

I have noticed that, within my county - and the villages i looked into ... the tax percentage varies [it averages about 2% of the value/selling price of the home] and the villages whose homes are less expensive, their percentage was higher.

That could be part of why you see a higher tax percentage in Lake County [Round Lake] but the taxes are roughly the same... possibly even lower than other towns.

but -- when you get to the nitty gritty of Illinois... we are all taxed pretty heavily.

our income tax is only 3% where other states are higher....

[madeit07]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

Go down to City Hall, find out who the mayor is, when the council meets each month. Go meet with the police department, fire chief, etc.

Most towns have community advisory boards and they are looking for volunteers. Some of the panels include a pension committee, police review and the like.

Or you can sit and b**** on the internet and complain to your heart's content ... which gets rather boring.

Your commentary is ammusing - the less sarcastic - the more people will listen to you.

Thanks for the advice.

[Heather1954]

A friend of mine told me about lakecountyappeal.com. They had a coupon for $25 off the review fee so my review was only $25 and I didn't have to do any work! I had to fill out one form and that was it. It did take a little time to hear back but I did get an e-mail saying they were very backed up (I wonder why they are soooo busy ) but they said they thought they could save me $1,200 this year. When I received my notice from them they actually lowered my tax bill by almost $2,000! $1,976 to be exact. If I can find the coupon code I will post it but even if I had to pay $50 this was well worth it. I owe them 25% of my savings but that is fine with me. In this market if I could get a $2,000 return on my $500 all the time I would be very happy (and rich)! Their e-mail is [email]info@lakecountyappeal.com[/email] and the web site is [url]www.lakecountyappeal.com[/url].

[greedibanks]

My question is:
-Who is responsible for making the decision to have our taxes set so high?
-How can we ask our local government to lower our taxes?
-What needs to happen to lower our taxes to $2,000-a maximum of $5,000/year?

OK it looks to me like no one gave you a decent reply. So... in case you didn't find out already and for the benefit of others: the property tax is levied by the COUNTY. So to fight it you have to appeal to the property tax board of your county which is LAKE county. There is a recognized APPEALS PROCESS. I'm surprised if you have NOT received solicitations in the mail asking if you wish to appeal your taxes -- most people do get them, especially if your taxes ARE unfairly high (like mine were in Cook County). Usually the deal with these attorneys is they charge a fee if the appeal is successful but it's WELL worth trying, as I lowered my tax from over $9000 to about $7000 for 3 years running. NOW, remember your taxes are based on value of your home, so to make a statement like "people pay only $5000 in Deerfield" is pointless, it depends on the assessed value of each home. Within the SAME County, taxes are always percentage of home value!
The Counties are greedy for money these days so what I'm interested to see is if they LOWER taxes as they should seeing as how home values have declined! But we won't bank on that. Good luck.

[lakecountylifer]

First, who ever told you taxes in Deerfield average $5000 was either lying or
smoking the peace pipe. In Lake county all of the taxing bodies are listed on your tax bill. Your only shot at reducing your bill is challenging your accessed value. Seriously, if your paying $10000 per year in Round Lake, you either are being screwed or you bought the nicest home in one of the crappiest parts of the county. Sorry I can't give you any more help than that. Good
luck though getting multiple tazing bodies to reduce the tax rate lol.

[lakecountylifer]

Sorry I just realized the OP is months old.