Tag: assessment

A Mission From God: Blues Brothers and Tax

By Sam Brunson

On February 1, Amazon Prime Video started streaming Blues Brothers. Now, in spite of its being one of the great movies of the 20th century, and having one of the greatest soundtracks ever, I hadn’t seen it in years, and definitely not since I moved to Chicago. So I decided to watch it, both because I love the movie and because I wanted to see its view of Chicago now that I know this city.

I remembered that the plot revolved around Jake and Elwood trying to raise $5,000 for the orphanage they grew up in or the orphanage will be closed, but I’d forgotten that the $5,000 was to pay the orphanage’s property tax assessment:

I’d also never watched a movie with Amazon’s X-Ray feature before. And X-Ray announced that the motivation for their mission from God is a factual error, because Illinois doesn’t tax church property.

Is that true? Continue reading “A Mission From God: Blues Brothers and Tax” →

Regressivity and Cook County Property Taxes

I was listening to “The Morning Shift” on WBEZ this morning, and they started talking about property tax. Now, property tax isn’t really my thing, but the story caught my ear for a couple reasons.

First, of course, I’m a homeowner in Chicago, so the recent property tax hike is salient enough that it’s worth some of my time. Second, as my wife pointed out to me, the assessment of property values has an aspect that seems tremendously regressive and, therefore, problematic. Continue reading “Regressivity and Cook County Property Taxes” →