Another Property Tax Scandal

Nice to see Conehead's staff carrying on the long time traditions of the Chicago Machine:

• For the past five years, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget director has illegally gotten property tax breaks on a South Loop condo she owns but hasn’t lived in since 2019.

  Annette Guzman got those tax breaks from her former boss, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi. They’ve saved her $3,434 in taxes on a condo she called an investment property on the required financial disclosure statement she filed with the Cook County clerk a year ago.

  Guzman and Kaegi say that, until asked by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter about the tax breaks, they were unaware she was violating state law by collecting the homeowner exemption on her investment property and also her Bronzeville home.

  Illinois law allows homeowners one such exemption every year and requires them to live in the home.

  Now, Kaegi’s staff has canceled the homeowner exemption on the investment property and ordered Guzman to repay $2,071.89 in tax breaks she got — not what she wrongfully failed to pay for the past five years but just for the past three years. Kaegi also waived any interest payments.

Dozens of politicians have been caught up in the scam of undervaluing properties or residency issues connected to "investment" properties. Seldom have they been held criminally liable and certainly never politically. Luis Gutierrez is the first one that comes to mind. Shortshanks got a sweetheart deal on his condo before it was even built and then sold it for ten or more times what he bought it for within a very short time frame.

Just pay back a portion (never the whole thing) and skip the interest payments that cheated actual taxpayers out of services.