Property Tax in Macon County, Illinois

What the Macon County numbers mean

The median is the midpoint of the county's actual bills: half of Macon County homeowners pay more than $2,560 a year and half pay less. The exact bill for any one home depends on its assessed value, exemptions, and which school, municipal and special districts cover it.

Set against the median home value of $121,800, the median bill works out to a derived effective rate of 2.10%. That rate is an estimate computed from the two medians — no county publishes a rate calculated this way — but it adjusts for home prices, which makes comparisons between counties more meaningful.

The key figures for Macon County

For context, the Illinois medians are $5,189 of tax on $250,500 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Macon County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Illinois: #43 of 102 counties
• Median home value rank in Illinois: #61 of 102
• Population rank in Illinois: #19 of 102 (102,591 residents)
• Population density rank: #17 of 102 (177 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Illinois: #38 of 102 (580 sq mi, 1.0% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $213; per $1,000 of home value: $2.10

How Macon County compares

Of the 102 Illinois counties with published data, 42 have a higher median property tax bill than Macon County's $2,560, putting the county at #43 in the state. Its bill is about 51% lower than the state median of $5,189 and about 14% lower than the national median of $2,969.

Rates and values pull in opposite directions: an expensive housing market can produce big bills at ordinary rates. Here the derived rate is 2.10%, versus 0.98% derived nationally, and the median home value ranks #61 within Illinois.

Some extra context for Macon County: the median bill works out to about $213 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $2,102 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 102,591 people — the #19 most populous county in Illinois, spread over 580 square miles, a density of about 177 people per square mile. Its median home value, $121,800, ranks #61 among the state's 102 counties with data.

Nationally, Macon County's median bill of $2,560 ranks #647 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 21% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 0.8% of Illinois's population, its median home value is about 51% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 21.02% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Macon County to the most expensive county, Lake County ($8,743), is $6,183 a year.

Counties nearest Macon County in the Illinois ranking

Macon County and its population peers

Population is a useful lens on these figures, so the table below sets Macon County beside the counties closest to it in population anywhere in the country — communities of a similar scale operating under different state and local tax systems. Ranked by median tax paid within this peer group of 9, Macon County's $2,560 bill is #4 of 9.

The closest population match is Nevada County, California (102,452 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $4,468 on a median home value of $602,800 — $1,908 less than Macon County pays.

Staying within Illinois, the counties nearest Macon County by population are LaSalle County (109,049 residents, median tax $3,336 on a median value of $154,900); Kankakee County (106,833 residents, median tax $4,125 on a median value of $185,700); DeKalb County (100,512 residents, median tax $5,889 on a median value of $231,900); Vermilion County (73,179 residents, median tax $1,666 on a median value of $92,900). The spread in their median bills — all under the same state framework — shows how much of the property tax burden is decided county by county and district by district.

How the tax is worked out

As an illustration of the arithmetic: at Macon County's derived rate of 2.10%, a home valued at $400,000 would carry a tax bill of roughly $8,408 a year. That is only an illustration using the derived rate — a real bill is computed from the property's assessed value, its exemptions, and the combined rates of its specific taxing districts, so it can be higher or lower.

The usual sequence is: the local assessor values the property; exemptions are applied; the taxable value is multiplied by the combined local rates; and the county bills and collects the tax, distributing it to the schools, municipalities and districts that levied it.

Illustrative bills in Macon County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 2.10% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Macon County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 2.07% and the US figure of 0.98%:

Illustration only: real bills are computed from the assessed value, exemptions, and the combined rates of the property's actual taxing districts.

Checking your assessment in Macon County

Most successful appeals are won on facts, not arguments. Start with the property record card held by the Macon County assessor: wrong square footage, an extra room, or a missing homestead exemption are common and fixable. Next, line your assessed value up against recent sales of genuinely similar homes nearby. Many disputes end at an informal conversation with the assessor's office; if yours does not, file the formal appeal with the review board named on your notice before its deadline, evidence attached, and keep paying the bill in the meantime so penalties do not build up.

More Illinois counties

• DeKalb County, IL — $5,889
• Kankakee County, IL — $4,125
• LaSalle County, IL — $3,336
• Tazewell County, IL — $3,481
• Vermilion County, IL — $1,666
• Kendall County, IL — $7,556

Frequently asked questions