When the dogged work of an investigative blogger found that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had been living free of charge for several years in Congresswoman Rosa DeLaura's DC basement apartment, questions re-surfaced as to whether Emanuel's tax issues were more widespread. Because former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle was forced out of the Obama Administration's HHS Secretary spot due to his "forgetfulness" to report the luxury of a limousine driver at his beckoned call as a possible taxable income, tax queries focused back on Emanuel. (See Dick Morris' "Rahm's Rent is Just Tip of the Iceberg" HERE.)
With all those wheels grinding, a simple Google search turned up questions Illinois Review raised about Emanuel's Chicago property listings in November 2008, and the controversy as well as the vitriol stirred among loyal Cook County leftists for asking questions about Emanuel's 5th CD residential property taxes.
During that time of query, we explained the confusion and the resulting angry emails we received from the Cook County Assessor's office. It seemed peculiar that Emanuel's home, while located at 4228 North Hermitage, wasn't the base for his property tax payments listed on the assessor's web site records. We found the Emanuels not only own 4228, they acquired two valuable adjacent vacant lots to the north -- 4230 and 4232. The Cook County Assessor's website lists 4232 North Hermitage, an adjoining vacant lot as the location where those lots taxes are billed. Still, the Emanuels' home address is not listed on the Cook County Assessor's website HERE.
Cook County assessor's market value lists 4232 North Hermitage's vacant lots and adjoining two story resident at $630,219 in 2008. For a 2.5 bathroom, two or more story 62 plus year old house, the Emanuels paid almost $13,000 in Cook County property taxes in 2008.
Other houses on the street sans attached vacant lots, pay approximately $6000/year half of what the Emanuels pay for 4228, 4230 and 4232 North Hermitage. now merged into two lots, the Cook County assessors office told us in November.
The confusion in November 2008 over property taxes tied to the Emanuels' non-profit organization, which lists the 4228 North Hermitage home address as their non-profit's base office. While the Emanuels' are the key donors to their non-profit org, the recipients of the Emanuels' donations from the non-profit are the area local synagogue and its affiliated private school, where Mrs. Emanuel serves on the school's board of directors. Most recently, the synagogue received $30,000 from the Emanuel private charity fund.
Illinois Review's put together a short video of the property and the information gathered up to give visual perspective on the Emanuel property tax questions:
Hopefully, this will resolve some of those lingering questions out there.
Other posts on the topic:
