PAYDAY

Illinois Court Clears the Way for Trump to Get $1M in Property Tax Refunds

The refund for the overvaluation of his skyscraper will come out of the funds that were expected to go to the city, including its public school system.

An Illinois appeals court on Monday upheld a board’s decision that Donald Trump’s namesake tower in Chicago was overvalued by officials in 2011, setting the former president and his co-owners on a path to receiving $1 million in property tax refunds. The court’s 13-page decision came after it ruled the Cook County Board of Review and county prosecutors failed to present any “expert testimony in support of its estimation of value” for the Trump International Hotel & Tower. The payment will be parceled out by the Cook County treasurer’s office in 339 separate refunds, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and will be drawn from the city of Chicago and a number of other government agencies this year. A significant chunk of the refunds—about $540,000, the newspaper reported—is expected to come from the property taxes that were expected to go to the Chicago Public Schools system.