Democrat Tammy Duckworth hasn’t paid property tax on her Illinois home since 2015, report says

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is among more than 27,000 homeowners in Cook County, Illinois, who don’t pay a cent in property tax, according to a report.

But critics say all those exemptions make too many people eligible to pay no tax, thus increasing the burden on those who fail to qualify for breaks, according to the report. "We grant people relief regardless of their income situation, and the rest of the community has to pay more. It’s unfair."

"What we have done is to create all special sorts of categories – veterans, disabled people, senior citizens – and all of those exemptions administered by the county basically undermine the integrity of the property tax system," Laurence Msall, president of Chicago tax watchdog group the Civic Federation, told the Sun-Times.

"We grant people relief regardless of their income situation, and the rest of the community has to pay more," Msall continued. "It’s unfair, it’s very hard to monitor and it’s hard to authenticate who’s getting the value. Is it the needy people, or is it a large giveaway?"