UPDATE: A bill that could have harmed homeowners who unwittingly claimed homestead exemptions they weren't entitled to died in the Illinois Senate on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012.
The action Tuesday marked the second time HB506 had come up for a vote during the Veto Session. A bill sponsor, Sen. Antonio Munoz [1], D-Chicago, pulled the bill for consideration after a failed attempt Nov. 29. That meant the bill could be reintroduced on Tuesday.
The failure on Dec. 4 means HB506 is dead. Legislation could be reintroduced in a new bill or attached to an existing bill, but observers say it is unlikely that the homestead exemption measure would reappear in the Veto Session.
IAR had waged a year-long effort to stop the bill's passage, and the 41,000-member association had issued a call to action to members this week to urge lawmakers to stop the legislation.
HB506 [2] had been proposed by Cook County but would have been applicable statewide.
IAR was against the bill because it would impose substantial costs and penalties on unknowing, unintentional violators who simply fail to pro-actively determine and notify the assessor of their ineligibility within a homestead exemption system that is generally based on the automatic renewal of those exemptions in most counties.
Among the issues:
- The bill as written would target equally scofflaws and those who make an honest mistake. For example, relatives unwittingly inherit a home with an improper exemption might be tagged with substantial tax liens, penalties and back interest.
- In most of the state’s counties, certain exemptions renew automatically each year. That means that an elderly person filing for an exemption once but who then has a residency change might get penalized without even knowing it.
- The bill even allows penalties to be handed to homeowners if an error is made by an assessor’s office.
IAR believes the focus of this legislation should be to educate and inform property taxpayers to improve compliance rather than impose tax liens and huge penalties.
IAR has worked throughout the year to address issues with the bill’s backers. The legislation has been strongly pushed [3] by Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle [3].
Learn more by reading this overview [4] and call legislators to tell them that HB506 could harm homeowners who unknowingly and unintentionally file for exemptions in the state.