Investigative Reporter Called Out For Low Tax Bill

WGN Chicago) Investigative Reporter and Anchor Ben Bradley is used to bringing the heat of people that don’t pay their fair share.

Back in 2018, he posted this about Donald Trump helping powerful people lower their property taxes.

But now, Bradley is being called out for what he has been paying for the property taxes on his house.

Bradley listed his Chicago area home for sale for $1.899 million. He paid $1.4 million for the home back in 2010.

But his taxes on the home were just $5,000 per year, when the taxes should have been somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per year.

It appears that the county assessor had valued Bradley’s home at only $231,000, but that value seems to have applied to the home that previously sat on the land of his home. That was an 800-square-foot, 1915 one-story home.

Bradley’s house is a six-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion listed at 6,113 square feet.

Bradley pleaded ignorance when asked by Patch about the low tax rate.

"When questions were raised, we immediately reached out to the assessor’s office and have heard nothing back. If, and when, they get back to me, I will of course pay the amount due … as I have always done in the past," Bradley said.

"If the assessor wants to claim I owe something different, and that’s proven true, of course I’m going to pay," Bradley added. “We have never sought a lowering of our tax bill, and we have been repeatedly told it sometimes takes years in Cook County for the appraisals to catch up.”

While it appears that Bradley just paid the low bill based on what it was assessed, he had to know that he was paying an amount that was much lower than it should have been.

I’m not sure how many people would call up the county assessor and complain they are not paying enough in taxes, but it still isn’t sitting well with viewers.