The hot topics last night at the Rock the Block fundraiser for CURE were the bailout and the fresh-to-your door Cook County Real Estate Tax Bills. If you're not lucky enough to live in Cook County, I can only describe the feeling of opening one of these tax bills as much like having a Colonoscopy, but without the soft music.
For those of you curious about what these look like here's one I recently captured in the wild (Internet):
(Example Tax Bill - Cook County)
The first thing I love about this bill is the "PAY ONLY THIS AMOUNT" in the top left corner. This sentence, designed by team of psychologists, is meant to soften up the lucky opener and keep them from vomiting immediately. You think "thank goodness I only need to pay this amount." Before "only" was added the payment receiving center employees were required by OSHA to have vomit sawdust in hand when opening tax payments.
The next section I'm drawn to is the "Tax Calculator". Ah, the good old days of calculators. My first was a TI-55 and it was a beauty - except for that humming sound the screen made. I never quite understood those Reverse Polish notation HP calculators carried by the true nerds. Do people still say Revere Polish notation or has that been wiped from PC history books?
As I start reading the Tax Calculator section though, I quickly realized it wasn't a calculator at all. It's more of an Tax Obfuscator with foreign terms like "State Equalization Factor", "Equalized Assessed Value", and "Assessment Level". Who makes these things up? I especially like the "2007 Equalized Assessed Value (EAV)" item. Putting EAV in parenthesis brings sudden clarity to an otherwise extremely murky line item. Honey, please hand me the barf bag I'm heading into the details section of the bill.
Hey, where's my Homeowner's Exemption? Last time I checked I'm living in home and I'm the owner (borrowed of record). I'm sure a quick call to the office first thing Monday morning will fix that - wink wink.
I won't bore you with my take on each of the eighteen (18) line items on the bill, but here are a few of my favorites (in order of absurdity):
1. SUBURBAN T B SANITARIUM - ($0.00) The sanitarium must have closed as there's no bill for 2007. Why do they continue to list it? As a threat of course. "Remember the T B Sanitarium Tax? Stop complaining and pay your bill or we'll bring it back faster than you can slap a tick."
2. CONSOLIDATED ELECTIONS - ($27.34) When were all of the elections merged into one? Maybe my eyes are glazing over but do we actually pay to vote?
3. N SHORE MOSQUITO ABATEMENT - ($18.22) You can't complain about killing bugs, right. But should the amount be based on a home's value? Do mosquitos prefer to suck blood from the rich? I know there's a taxation analogy somewhere in that comment, but I just can't seem to put my finger on it.
Remember: A political promise today means another tax tomorrow.
2 Comments from MAG Readers:
I think those that live closest to the rivers and creeks should be paying more into the freaking mosquito abatement, LMAO. You are probably contributing to the population of mosquitos than we are (but we probably pay more than you......oh yeah, ours is $31.75 yikes!
taxes are a bit crazy, thankfully we didnt' pass out when we opened ours, but we did drink more than night at the big party because of them! LMAO.
The thing that gets me is they can never go down even though they are based on an artificial (paper) valuation of our homes. Do you think next year we'll get a credit? Hee Hee
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