INTERMODAL ASSESSMENTS AT O'HARE ARE MIA

The 2.5 million square foot intermodal facility opened at O'Hare in October of 2018. It was constructed to house all of the car rental facilities in a single space, with additional public parking on the 4th and 5th floors of the building. Although in operation since that time, the Cook County Assessor has never created the individual leasehold tax parcel numbers needed to allow it to allocate the property tax burden amongst the various rental agencies. The Assessor blames the City of Chicago Department of Aviation, while the CDA says it has turned over the paperwork necessary for the Assessor to finish the job. In the meantime, the car rental agencies are forced to accrue what they believe will be their ultimate tax bills for 2019, 2020 and 2021, if and when the Assessor finally gets around to issuing the omitted tax bills. When a similar issue finally got resolved at Midway, the taxing authorities actually had the nerve to try and collect a 10% interest penalty for late payment from the rental companies. That attempt was finally halted in court. In the meantime, over the past few years taxing bodies have lost significant tax revenue that should have been in their coffers by now, not left hanging fire while the Assessor continues to delay the issuance of the new tax parcel numbers and bills.

When will this mess finally get resolved? Stay tuned.