Avon Township Supervisor Sam Yingling announced the launch of a pilot program to provide property tax relief to senior citizens and military veterans. The Senior and Veteran Tax Assistance Program (SVTAP) will help seniors and veterans who are having difficulty paying their property taxes.
“The decline in home values has disproportionately affected seniors and veterans, many of whom are on fixed incomes,” said Yingling. “When first installment property tax bills were due, I kept hearing from folks who simply didn’t have the money. Many of the hardest hit have lived here for decades and many have risked their lives for our freedom. I can’t sit on the sidelines, we need to take action.”
SVTAP will be funded by the Avon Township Community Foundation, using voluntary pay returns that were given back to the Township by Yingling and other elected officials.
Yingling, a proponent for property tax reform, has reduced Avon Township’s levies by over 20 percent, according to a news release. He also cut spending while expanding the services offered by the Township, specifically the food pantry.
“Lake County has the highest taxes in the Midwest and the sixteenth highest in the Country. Many of the affected veterans and seniors own their homes outright, it’s the taxes that are forcing them to sell or risk foreclosure. I have heard too many stories of people having to choose between paying for food and medication or their tax bills,” Yingling said.
Low-income veterans and seniors will be helped on an “as needed” basis pursuant to funding availability. Avon Township will pay a portion of the taxes of the hardest hit, not the entire amount. The household income guidelines are based on the standards set by the Illinois Department of Human Services and recipients must be residents of Avon Township.
For more details, contact the Avon Township Supervisor’s Office at 847-546-1446.
- Submitted by the Avon Township Supervisor's Office.
Sandra Sims
11:17 am on Sunday, June 17, 2012
Seniors and Vets, but not people with disability? People who were forced to leave the workforce young due to a disability are generally in worse financial shape than seniors who had their whole lives to save for retirement. Just saying.....
Nightcrawler
10:01 pm on Friday, June 22, 2012
This is an issue affecting more people than anyone is willing to admit, and if people don't start taking it seriously, you are going to have mass foreclosures that make the initial housing crisis look like nothing.
It's ridiculous veterans and people with disabilities work their whole lives to own their own homes, and after paying them off, still cannot afford the cost of living locally because people in government and on boards keep screaming they want more and more of your money to fatten their already large pensions, or other things.
When does it end?
Go look and see what most retired military individuals get for a retirement pension every month. It's a joke in some cases, and a fraction of what people on many local boards or for other community jobs get.
Worst of all, residents in Avon Township voted for someone who has faught tooth and nail against excessive government spending in the last congressional election, and what did the state's democrats do?
The slapped you voters in the face, and re-districted everything, bascially telling you your vote doesn't matter. The same House democrats in Springfield who are still fighting and whining because they want more funding for THEIR pensions too, even though they already bankrupted the state and have pulled huge amounts of funding from OUR school districts.
I really wish people would stand up to this kind of thing for once. More and more people will suffer or lose their homes if we don't.
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