Cook County Assessor Needs to Pick on my Grandma?

Cook County Assessor Mails Senior Freeze/Senior Homeowner Exemption Forms

The Cook County Assessor's office notified senior residents that the annual Senior Freeze Exemption and Senior Homeowner Exemption forms were mailed on February 9, 2011.  Initially these forms were to be mailed at the end of March or beginning April of this year so they are extremely early.  The mailing of these forms means that at any time you may begin filing your freeze and exemptions forms with the Schaumburg Township Assessor - Monday - Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.  These forms must be mailed in no later than March 8, 2011 (and not March 3, 2011 as previously announced in the Daily Herald article on 2/7/2011).  The deadline will be March 8, 2011 to file your Senior Freeze and/or Senior Homeowner Exemption Forms.

So if you were born in 1945 or before you are basically being persecuted in my humble estimation.  You are entitled to this exemption which gives seniors another break (on top of the homeowners exemption) on the equalized assessed valuation of a principal residence. Seniors with annual household income of $55,000 and below can also apply to have the equalized assessed valuation frozen for their principal residence. So depending on your income requirements you can have all 3 exemptions - homeowners, senior and the senior freeze.

Berrios states that mailing the forms in this new procedure will cost the county an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 without factoring in any additional expenditures for outreach (fancy word for answering questions). This is just an additional cost the county absolutely doesn’t need.  I think seniors are being targeting just because they can!  There is a likelihood of seniors not understanding or not knowing this new procedure where they can loose their exemption and make paying their taxes more difficult.  Most seniors are on a fixed and highly budgeted income and can not take another 'knock on the chin' with any tax increases. So on top of the recent reassessment in the county, they are also playing these games with the senior taxpayers.