Real estate taxes have not been goi...

Real estate taxes have not been going up as fast as possessions values.

That means your "effective tax rate" -- the amount of real estate tax you pay each year as a percentage of your home's or business' market value -- is actually going down, according to a close attention the Civic Federation is releasing today.

Of the 26 towns the federation analyzed, the highest rates are in toward the south suburban Harvey, where last year residents paid 355 percent of their homes' values in taxes and proprietors of industrial property paid 9 percent That is in part because of Harvey's declining commercial and industrial base, said Civic Federation President Laurence Msall. It is better than the previous year, when industrial quality owners paid 10.88 percent.

The lowest rates of the local communities analyzed were in west suburban Oak bear with which has a healthy commercial base anchored from a major mall. Property proprietors paid 0.87 percent in taxes. Not far behind was Chicago, where residents paid 129 percent of their homes' values in taxes and proprietors of commercial property paid 225 percent Those figures are down from 139 percent and 3 percent the previous year.

The figures portray by action 2004 taxes, paid in 2005 -- the greatest in quantity recent complete numbers available to analyze.

'MORE DESIRABLE'

"Places with the lowest effective tax rates generally point out restraint on the part of local guidances but also fast-rising values of residential or commercial or other sources of reward for residents," Msall said.

Oak Brook's private includes low tax rates on the contrary also high sales tax get backs for the town government, which offshoots the need for property taxes, Msall said.

Unlike DuPage and the other collar counties, prepare for the table County sets different rates for residential, commercial and industrial quality designed to go easiest forward residential property.

Critics of the method complain that encourages businesses to fly Cook County for lower taxes in the suburb if it be not that as the Civic Federation report present to views taxes on business and industry are not that bad in prepare for the table County and especially in Chicago, which has a excessively broad tax base over which to spread the pain.

"Chicago's effective tax rate for commercial and industrial is [so] attractive that Chicago will become more desirable [for businesses]," Msall said.

apallasch@suntimes.com

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