DOWNTOWN — Only 16 percent of Chicagoans eligible for a property tax rebate designed to ease the burden of last year’s massive tax hike asked city leaders for their money back, officials said.
Those rebates totaled $3.8 million, according to data released by city officials.
The average rebate for homeowners was $108.
The program offered rebates of $25 to $200 to homeowners based on the increase in the city's portion of their most recent property tax bill and their household income. Senior citizens who are longtime homeowners qualified for an additional rebate.
In all, 25,300 homeowners applied for the rebate, city officials said.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and aldermen have differing ideas on how to spend the leftover $16.2 million.
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When the effort was launched Oct. 1, city officials expected the rebate program would return $20 million to 155,000 households earning less than $75,000. The average rebate was expected to be $150, officials said.
Originally set to run for two months, the program was extended by 30 days in an attempt to encourage more applicants, who had to show up at a city office to apply for the rebate in person.
The rebate had been designed to help residents cope with a $589 million property tax hike — the largest tax increase in Chicago history — touted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel as the only way to fill the city's massive deficit and shore up pensions for police officers and firefighters.
Earlier this month, Emanuel said state lawmakers were partially to blame for the low participation in the program. Emanuel had urged the General Assembly to approve an exemption for Chicago homeowners eligible for the tax break — allowing them to claim it when filing their taxes rather than applying for it afterward.
"It's a process we tried to simplify, we tried to do different things," Emanuel said. "At the end of the day, it's the difference of doing something after the fact versus simultaneously on the front end."
