The document discusses Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as a means for municipalities to support business projects in blighted areas by capturing incremental property tax increases for a 23-year period. It raises critical policy questions about the appropriateness of public funding for private businesses, community development definitions, and how TIFs impact wealth distribution between prosperous and poor areas. The authors advocate for more cautious use of incentives, arguing that many incentives fail to deliver expected benefits.

1. September 9, 2015
Tom Tresser
312-804-3230 – tom@tifreports.com

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Key Policy Questions
1. Under what circumstances do we give public $ to private
business?
2. Who plans what for whom? AKA, What defines
“community development”?
3. Are we broke?
4. Who’s watching our back? Need for new leaders.

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What are TIFs?

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What are TIFs?
• Created by municipality (state
statute)
• Designed to subsidize some
business project in “blighted” or
under-served area
• Captures “incremental” property
taxes ABOVE base when district
was created
• Only for hard costs
• Lasts 23 years
• Supposed to be spent where
collected

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How Do TIFs Work?
When the TIF is created,
the city tallies up all the
property taxes
generated by district in
that year (called the
"base" amount). After
that, all property tax
increases above the
base (the "increment")
are channeled to the TIF
district.
The property taxes
collected from
properties inside the
district BEFORE the
district was created
that go to units of
government stays
FLAT for the life of the
TIF (23 years).

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Money From TIFs Taken From?

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What are TIFs?
Under state law, areas proposed for TIF designation
must possess numerous blighting factors to be
eligible:
• Age
• Obsolescence
• Code violations
• Excessive vacancies
• Overcrowding of facilities

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TIFs Used to support commercial projects in
these “Blighted” Areas
40 S. Halsted
Apple Store

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Mr. TIF

13. To sum up:
 TIFs = property taxes
 Increment $ collected by TIF
 Run by city (mayor)
 Lasts 23 years
 Blight & “But for” conditions
 Hard costs
 Supposed to be spent where
collected

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What are TIFs doing to us?

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Amount of property taxes FROM the 42nd ward
sitting in TIF accounts on January 1, 2015:
$148,367,274

23. 188 W. Randolph Street –
Randolph Tower
Apartments
230 N. Michigan Avenue –
Hard Rock Hotel
555 W. Monroe Street –
PepsiCo

24. 123 S. Dearborn Street –
Dearborn Center
32 W. Randolph Street –
Oriental Theater
1 N. Dearborn Street - Sears

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1.
TIFs hoardtaxes in
prosperous communities
– starve poor
communities.

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Authors plead "Our
message is simple:
'Please, please, if you're
going to offer incentives,
don't give them to every
firm that asks -- Don't!
Ninety percent of the
time they don't work, and
handing them out after a
company has already
located in an area
without them makes no
sense at all."

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1. Help us research
2. Help us litigate
• FOIA Action
• TIF Legal Project

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4. Contribute/Get swag @
http://tinyurl.com/TIF-Swag
DVD with 2 TIF training videos + 2 bonus tracks
Nifty TIF Illumination poster

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www.civiclab.us
www.tifreports.com