Republican state lawmakers want to reform Illinois property taxes by giving a property tax exemption to seniors, and increasing property taxes for wind and solar.
They also introduced bills to make it easier for people older than 65 to get a homestead exemption, and allow property tax assessments to be published online.
Republican State Sen. Sally Turner, representing an area between Bloomington-Normal and Decatur, introduced a bill to increase property taxes on wind and solar.
Turner said Illinois has not changed the wind tax law since 2006 and solar property tax laws since 2018, when the industries were first starting.
“These are now well established industries operating on some of the most valuable farmland in Illinois, yet they're still being taxed using an outdated, antiquated, artificially low valuation,” Turner said.
Turner’s bill would increase solar from $218,000 per megawatt to $446,000 and wind from $360,000 to $588,000 per megawatt.
Turner said the increase in property taxes would support local communities and potentially allow them to slow increasing property taxes for their residents because of the increased revenue.
“This matters because property taxes for everyone are based on their total value of property in a taxing district, while these entities are assessed at lower values than they should be, a greater share of the tax burden is placed on homeowners, farmers and our small businesses.”
Turner said solar and wind are taking up valuable farm land, adding the bill would make sure these industries are paying their equitable share to reflect the use of that farmland.
Online access/homestead exemptions
Republican state Sen. Chris Balkema, representing a large rural area between Bloomington-Normal and Interstate 80, introduced a bill allowing access to online property tax assessment rolls.
“Currently, there's a requirement that all of the property tax assessment rolls get published in newspapers. No option to do online,“ Balkema said.
He said this would not be an unfunded mandate because it just gives the option to a local government to decide if they want to publish assessments online.
Balkema also introduced a bill making it easier for seniors to access homestead exemptions that lower their tax burden.
"A person who hits the age of 65 to qualify for the senior citizens homestead exemption act to not have to go back to the courthouse or to the assessor, wherever the assessor is, and prove that they didn't get younger every year," Balkema said.
Balkema said this already has been implemented in Grundy County and the proposed law would implement it statewide.
The final bill that was introduced by Sen. Craig Wilcox, representing a rural area outside of Chicago, would exempt seniors from paying property taxes on houses they have completely paid for.
“That means no mortgage, no liens, no home equity line of credit, no reverse mortgage. This is very narrowly tailored to support those who've built our communities,” said Wilcox.
Wilcox said seniors should not lose the home they paid for because they cannot afford property taxes, adding seniors helped build a community and deserve to not worry about keeping their house once they paid for it.
None of the bills have been called for a vote and there is only three weeks left in the legislative session.
