Yesterday the Illinois Department of Revenue released the final 2020 Cook County equalization factor. The factor (sometimes referred to as the multiplier) for 2020 is 3.2234. The final factor in 2019 was 2.9160, which means the 2020 factor has increased by 10.5% over 2019. This is the third highest multiplier for Cook County. It is less than only the multipliers for 2009 and 2010, when the multipliers were 3.3701 and 3.3000 respectively. The press release from the Department of Revenue is available here.
Cook County equalization factors for the past 16 years are set forth in the table below.
|
Tax Year
|
Final Multiplier
|
|
2005
|
2.7320
|
|
2006
|
2.7076
|
|
2007
|
2.8439
|
|
2008
|
2.9786
|
|
2009
|
3.3701
|
|
2010
|
3.3000
|
|
2011
|
2.9706
|
|
2012
|
2.8056
|
|
2013
|
2.6621
|
|
2014
|
2.7253
|
|
2015
|
2.6685
|
|
2016
|
2.8032
|
|
2017
|
2.9627
|
|
2018
|
2.9109
|
|
2019
|
2.9160
|
|
2020
|
3.2234
|
The Property Tax Code requires the Department to issue a multiplier that, when applied to the assessed value of all property in a county (except for specially assessed property such as farmland), will result in the aggregate assessed value of all property in the County being 33.33% of the property’s fair cash value. This equalization of assessed values is accomplished by comparing recorded sales prices to assessed values for the three prior years, and it is done to implement property tax limitations and certain state funding programs fairly.
