There are 1,220 TIFs in Illinois inside of 455 municipalities. In 2010 they extracted $1.12 BILLION in property taxes from taxpayers across the state. What do we know, collectively, about all this economic activity? Precious little.
We need YOU to become a TIF Illuminator and help shed light on this economic transfer system that takes from the many and gives to the few.
What you can do:
ANYWHERE IN AMERICA:
IF YOU ARE IN ILLINOIS:
IF YOU ARE IN CHICAGO:
We’d love your comments, suggestion and offers to collaborate. It’s going to take a village to understand how the city uses the hundreds of millions of dollars it extracts from 163 TIF districts every year. It’s OUR money.
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Skype: tom.tresser
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CivicLab
Twitter: http://twitter.com/civiclabchicago
We are all volunteers but we have BIG plans for the TIF Illumination Project. We’d like to print and distribute at least 5,000 copies of our ward maps and TIF summaries in EACH ward as we complete our investigation of that ward. We intend to meet with community groups and share this information with them. Sound ambitious? Sure, but it’s OUR money and if we don’t watch out how it’s used and abused, who will?
Invest in the TIF Project!