How to Calculate Champaign County IL Property Taxes
Previously I've written about Champaign County IL property taxes and the importance of considering this expense when purchasing a home. I've also written about how to appeal your property taxes when the assessed value of your home is higher than it should be.
Once again, it's tax payment and tax appeals season (appeals started July 1st!), so I thought it would be appropriate and informative to talk about...
How to calculate your property taxes:
Step 1: Let's say that you hop over to the county assessor's website, look up your home address, and discover that the assessor has listed the market value of your property at $150,000. This number is the basis for calculating your taxes.
(Note: Is this number what you can expect to receive from the sale of your home? Not necessarily. Often this number will differ from the actual market value of your property by tens of thousands of dollars in either direction. If this number is higher than the actual market value of your home, then it's time to appeal your property tax assessment. See 2nd link above on how to do that.)
Step 2: Next, we need to determine the assessed value of the property, which in Champaign County will equal one-third of the market value. In this example, we'll multiply $150,000 by one-third to get $50,000.
$150,000 x 1/3 = $50,000 (The assessed value.)
Step 3: Sometimes a county will then multiply the assessed value by an equalization factor. This number is used to achieve uniformity in tax assessments. On my tax bill, there is no equalization factor, but you may want to check your own tax bill to see if there is one. To keep things simpler, we'll assume there isn't one.
Step 4: Take the equalized value (which in this example is the same as the assessed value) and subtract any exemptions for which you qualify. For instance, if your property is your primary residence, then you can subtract an owner-occupied exemption of $6,000 (this amount may change in the future). There are other exemptions for senior citizens, home improvements, disabled persons, as well as others, but the owner-occupied exemption is the most common.
Our new taxable value is $44,000 ($50,000 - $6,000 = $44,000)
Step 5: Multiply the taxable value of $44,000 by the local tax rate to get the final number for your property taxes. Your tax rate will be specific to the city or township in which you live. We'll use Urbana's 2010 tax rate of .084922 for this example.
$44,000 x .084922 = $3,736.57
There you have it. For your 2010 taxes, payable in 2011, you would owe $3,736.57 assuming that your home is worth $150,000 and is located in Urbana.
I know, it's a complicated formula. But don't blame me; blame our government :-)
In any case, you can always call our local assessor's office if you have specific questions about your own taxes 217-384-3760. Hope this helps!
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