If you are a homeowner in certain portions of the city, you’ve seen your bill go up quite a bit. On the predominately Latino Lower West Side, there was an increase of 46%, according to a new study.

The last time Chicago voters passed a binding referendum that applied to the entire city was 1885, according to city records. As supporters’ paths to the ballot have been nearly closed off, they have begun shifting the fight to the 2023 campaign for mayor and City Council.

Property taxes can be a doozy. Or rather, how they are calculated can be. WTTW News Explains walks you through the ins and outs of the process. 

Delinquent properties are eligible for the Cook County Tax Sale, which is administered by the Cook County treasurer’s office. That’s where a private investor buys the debt and can make a big profit off of it.

The second-installment of property owners’ 2021 tax bills will be more than 150 days late amid months of bureaucratic wrangling and finger pointing among Cook County officials.

Dozens of Chicagoans who waited hours to get their turn to address the Chicago City Council were prevented from speaking because a majority of the Chicago City Council attended Monday's special meeting.

Supporters of the proposal say the change will help the nearly 66,000 Chicagoans who are unhoused by generating approximately $160 million annually.

The budget takes effect Jan. 1, 2023, approximately two months before Mayor Lori Lightfoot is set to ask voters for a second term as Chicago mayor, does not include a property tax hike to keep up with the soaring rate of inflation, or any other tax or fee hikes.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $170.6 million budget gap in 2023 relies on booming tax revenues that she said proves Chicago’s budget has fully recovered from the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to a “little-known loophole,” hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate investors have “siphoned” approximately $280 million from schools, parks, libraries, fire departments and other government agencies between September 2015 and September 2022 in Cook County. 

It's rare when newspaper editorial boards and fiscal watchdog groups recommend that residents vote to increase their property taxes. But that's exactly the case as Cook County voters face a binding question on their election ballot: Do you want to pay a little more to help fund the Cook County Forest Preserves?

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $170.6 million budget gap in 2023 relies on booming tax revenues that she said proves Chicago’s budget has fully recovered from the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not explain Thursday how she would propose to bridge the city’s projected 2023 budget shortfall, which is now 33% bigger than the gap she detailed nearly two months ago.

A major part of a $1.2 billion multi-pronged state tax relief program will be disbursed to 6 million Illinois households starting Monday through the next six to eight weeks. The amount you’ll get back depends on factors such as income, family size and home value.

Chicago’s financial picture has been buoyed by the city’s red-hot real estate market and nearly $2 billion in federal aid designed to help the city withstand the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of the barriers erected by elected officials and civic leaders beginning in the 1930s to keep Black Chicagoans, Latino Chicagoans and White Chicagoans from living, working and playing in the same neighborhoods remain unchanged nearly a century later, according to a new study.