The Illinois Department of Revenue has issued Marion County a tentative property tax multiplier of 3.8-percent.
Supervisor of Assessments Mark Miller says the impact of the one-year multiplier will be to increase the entire assessed valuation of the county outside of farmland and mineral assessment that is handled by its own formula. He and the State Department of Revenue note by itself, the multiplier does not raise property taxes. However, property tax bills could go up if the amount requested by the local taxing district is greater than they received in the previous year.
The Illinois Department of Revenue says their study of real estate sales in 2017, 2018, and 2019 showed the value of property in Marion County is currently assessed at only 32.11 percent. The 3.8-percent multiplier will bring the valuation to the 33 and a third percent required by law.
Miller feels the problem has been caused by the big increase in prices being obtained for homes due to the hot real estate market that has resulted from limited listings and extremely low-interest rates that allows many to purchase more expensive homes than they normally could. In some cases, he says the sales prices compared to current valuations is significant and something his office couldn’t predict.
Miller says they will be looking at needed updates in assessments in the coming months to determine what changes are needed based on the sales study. He notes the multiplier is only assigned for one year. The need for any additional multiplier will then be determined by the State Department of Revenue in future years.
Miller says the multiplier is not final and could change based on action taken by the Board of Review that is just completing their session, but he doubts enough action has been taken to impact the figure.
