Chicago City Wire

Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson is criticizing Mayor Lori Lightfoot over her handling of the city’s property taxes.

City leaders, Wilson said, should cut property taxes.

“High taxes run people and businesses out of Chicago,” Wilson said on Twitter. “The Mayor’s decision to tie property taxes to inflation may result in gigantic bills for next year.” 

The Chicago Tribune reports the inflationary property tax increase could nearly quadruple in 2023 to 85.5 million.

Lightfoot recently defended the move to tie property taxes to inflation, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

The Center Square reported Lightfoot said her financial team is working on a plan to prevent a "significant burden" on taxpayers. 

"Nobody could've anticipated the consequences of inflation that we're seeing here this year, but we've started a discussion internally with our finance team," Lightfoot said. "We'll present a plan as part of our budget to make sure there isn't a significant burden on taxes for our taxpayers."

Inflation in 2022 is at a 40-year high. In June, consumer prices were 9.1% higher than the same month a year prior — the highest annual growth since 1981, Politico reported.

Under Lightfoot’s watch, an increasing number of people and businesses have been leaving the city. Citadel Securities recently announced its move to Miami from Chicago. 

“The firms are having difficulty recruiting top talent from across the world to Chicago given the rising and senseless violence in the city,” Zia Ahmed, a Citadel spokesman, told The New York Times. “Talent wants to live in cities where they feel safe.”

Wilson also vowed to remove what he calls the "backdoor speed camera tax." He said in a press release that “the speed and red-light cameras are regressive taxes and unfair. Mayor Lightfoot’s continuation of fines and fees could cause more Chicago residents to file bankruptcy.”