Chicago City Wire

Candidate for Cook County Assessor Nico Tsatsoulis is looking to shake things up at the Cook County Assessor's Office. 

Tsatsoulis stated that property tax rates not being capped would lead to an abnormal nominal value and suggested that needs to be changed. He added that State lawmakers need to address the fact that the property tax has no direct relation to the value of the property.

“The effort is commendable but what really needs change is the fact that our property taxes are not directly correlated to the values of our properties," Tsatsoulis said in a statement. "This is what elected officials should be working on to correct before anything else. People make the reasonable implicit assumption that their property tax is directly related to the value of their property because they hear all these discussions about property assessments and tax rates. What they do not realize is that assessments are only relevant in dividing the tax levy among property owners. The tax imposed on our property has nothing to do with the actual value of our property because the aggregate tax levy is not related to the value of the real estate."

Tsatsoulis's statement came after Pappa's recommendation for revising state law which would include "Changing Illinois law to require tax buyers to prove an error was 'material' to the tax sale and they were financially harmed," according to PR Newswire. Pappas also suggested, "Disallowing sales in error for mistakes on the Assessor's website, given that the Assessor tracks nearly 1.8 million properties, making it impossible to be totally current on the status of each property." Tsatsoulis lamented the fact that very few people know that this is the case, and he blamed politicians for not informing their constituents about the issue.

"Most people in Cook County and Illinois are not even aware that this is the case and those who are, are not happy about it," Tsatsoulis stated. "Politicians have done nothing all these years to inform citizens that this is the case. In fact, they try to hide it, never telling the truth to voters and never explaining how the unnecessarily complicated property tax system works. This system needs to change asap. We need to cap assessment increases at 2% and limit the amount of tax to 1% of the value of our property now. This can only happen if we vote out of office the professional profligate politicians who propagate this corrupt and bankrupt methodology of property assessments and deriving taxes. A vote for me is a vote to change the system."

According to the law firm Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn LLP, the second installment of Cook County property tax bills will be delayed, possibly by six months, due to the assessor's office updating its computer system. This has caused a delay in data being sent to the Board of Review which then delays the other county offices involved in the tax process. The first installment is 55% of the bill, and the second is the rest. The second installment is usually mailed out by June 30th, but this year it may not be mailed until early 2023, which is when the first installment of next year's tax is usually sent out.

Tsatsoulis is blaming incumbent Democratic assessor Fritz Kaegi for the delay in property tax bills saying that "this fiasco is important in that it is a manifestation of how broken the property assessment process is in Cook County." During a May debate between the two, Tsatsoulis accused Kaegi of not taking responsibility for his actions by blaming the computers for the tax bill delay. Tsatsoulis also noted that Kaegi came into office saying he was going to shift the tax burden to "rich downtown developers" but has instead harmed everyone in the county, especially those he is claiming to help the most. 

"The fact that Cook County is the only one out of 102 counties in Illinois that charges commercial properties by 250% more than residential properties, (thus hurting mostly the poor that spend a larger proportion of their income than rich people in buying goods and services from these overtaxed commercial properties) and the fact that assessments coming out of the assessor's office are inconsistent, erratic and arbitrary (by virtue of having governmental bureaucrats trying to replicate market prices, which at best is an exercise in futility)," Tsatsoulis said.

Tsatsoulis has also criticized the media in the state for not defending LGIS news after the Pritzker campaign put pressure on them. This comes after the Pritzker campaign demanded that Padlock Publications, The Daily Herald's parent company, stop printing LGIS content critical of Pritzker saying that LGIS articles are too critical of him and that they "represent an existential threat to quality, independent journalism." Padlock Publications caved to the demand. In a letter to the Pritzker campaign that Tsatsoulis also shared with the Chicago City Wire, he noted that he is running for a county-wide office in a major county and that "up to date no reporter from the media including the Tribune, the Sun-Times, the Daily Herald, Crain's or any other local publication or TV station (with the exception of a two-minute message on wttw.com) has ever asked me to say one word or mentioned any of my proposals or ideas concerning the election and the assessor's office, except for a reporter from the Chicago City Wire, an LGIS publication." He went on in the letter to rip the Pritzker campaign and the media for their behavior regarding this story.