Understanding
Your Tax Rate

Many people assume that the Assessor sets their tax bill. But nothing could be further from the truth...

The Assessor's Office merely sets assessments on real property based on market value. Our job ends there. Once we are done valuing your property, the assessment process ends and the Property Tax process begins.

The Property Tax Process

We all receive many services from our government bodies. They provide the schools that educate our children, the police who protect our homes, even the roads and sidewalks that we use every day.

Your property tax bill helps pay for these and many other services. The cost of these services determines the tax rate for your tax district. Your property tax bill is then derived by multiplying your assessed value by the property tax rate for your area.

The steps of this process begin with the assessment of your home, followed by the levy of budgets by government bodies, and concluding with the collection process.

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The Assessment Process

Each year, the Assessor's Office is required to review assessments for uniformity and accuracy before closing the assessment books. This process can include inspections of properties that have permits for new construction, reassessment of neighborhoods (or even individual homes) for uniformity and/or market value, and application of the annual Township Factor to all assessments in the township.

The annual Township Factor is a blanket multiplier recommended by the Kane County Supervisor of Assessments' Office (SA) that adjusts all assessments within a township for market value. Every year, the SA must conduct a sales-ratio study to determine what Township Factor is necessary to keep the median level assessments at the state-mandated level of 33 1/3%. If the SA's sales-ratio finds that a township is not at this statutory level, the SA will either recommend that the township's Assessor apply the Township Factor indicated by the sales-ratio study or, in certain cases, the SA may apply the Township Factor itself.

Once all assessments have been adjusted for the year, the Assessor's Office closes its books for the year. At this point, the Levy Process takes over.

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The Levy Process

Each governmental body listed on your tax bill must levy for the funds it needs to operate. In Kane, state law limits levy increases to 5% (or the rate of inflation, whichever is less) over the previous year's levy.

Note that this does not mean that individual tax bills will only increase by 5% or less each year.Your tax bill might be higher than this limit due to a reassessment of your home for market value, a reassessment due to an addition or remodeling, the loss of an assessment exemption, or a range of other factors.

 The individual taxing bodies must set their levies and then submit them to the County Clerk for approval. Once approved, the County Clerk then calculates the dollar amount of the levies against the dollar amount of the assessed values for the tax district in question. The ratio of levy amount divided by total assessed value yields the tax rate for the tax district.

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The Collection Process

Next, the County Clerk multiplies your assessment (minus any appropriate exemptions) by your tax rate to determine your property tax bill.

The County Treasurer sends out all property tax bills on May 1^st of each year.

Your property tax bill may be paid in two installments: the first installment is due June 1^st; the second installment is due September 1^st.

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