Cook County property tax burden shifted from businesses to homeowners thanks to Covid

May 15, 2025 5

Our current county Assessor, Fritz Kaegi, largely won his office on the promise to require businesses to pick up more of the tab on Cook County's total property tax levy, which in 2023 topped $18.3 billion.

Historically, the split of the levy roughly went down the middle, with homeowners responsible for 50% and businesses responsible for 50%. However, and as Kaegi regularly pointed out on the campaign trail in 2019, the balance over the years began to favor homeowners picking up the majority share, with split starting to look more like 60-40 or even 64-36. 

Kaegi made his promise to rebalance the split back to historical norms a core part of his victorious campaign.

Then Covid happened. 

It's simply a fact that under our real estate tax laws businesses would be entitled to significant property tax relief, because commercial property is assessed based not on the brick-and-mortar value of the buildings housing them but instead the income-earning potential of the enterprise housed inside. 

We all saw the immediate slow-down in retail and events traffic which also precipitated some longer-trend changes negatively impacting business. It all serves as ironclad justification for some level of commercial property tax relief. That inevitably hamstrings the changes Kaegi promised on the campaign trail. 

And, now, Crain's Chicago Business is beginning to take stock. In an article this week titled "Covid-era appeals shifted tax burden onto homeowners," the publication reported a $1.9 billion shift--away from commercial and onto residential owners. 

"In a study of property tax bills issued over the last three years, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas' office found owners of commercial properties appealed their assessed values far more than homeowners, and that it paid off in a big way," Danny Ecker reported. "Landlord appeals collectively brought down their resulting property tax bills by $3.3 billion for tax years 2021 through 2023. After removing a portion of that money dedicated for special taxing districts, the reductions during that span left homeowners shouldering roughly $1.9 billion more of the county's property tax burden."

You can read the study here.

"This study helps explain why many homeowners have experienced sticker shock when opening their property tax bills in recent years," Pappas said.

The article notes that commercial property owners appeal 64% of the time while homeowners appeal 27% of the time. We built the Property Tax Solutions website specifically to make this process as easy as possible, so the average homeowner can enjoy the same advantages of the savvy businessperson. Just Check Your Savings!