Cubs Co-Owner Avoids Paying Property Taxes On Wilmette Mansion

WILMETTE, IL — Todd Ricketts, the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, has avoided paying taxes on his custom-built Wilmette mansion since it was completed in 2010, according to property records.

Instead, Ricketts, 49, and his wife, free market advocate Sylvie Légère, 50, pay property tax based on the value of a home they demolished a decade ago, saving themselves tens of thousands of dollars and forcing other taxpayers to shoulder the burden, the Chicago Tribune reported.

After the newspaper obtained records of Ricketts' and Légère's property tax appeal requests, the Cook County Assessor's Office and the Cook County Board of Review opened investigations into how the Ricketts managed to keep county officials from taxing the value of their actual house.

The Tribune report was published the week after Cook County homeowners began opening their mail to find the second installment of their 2018 property tax bill. Ricketts declined to speak to the newspaper. Instead, a spokesperson provided a statement suggesting his attorney was responsible for any issues with his real estate taxes and promising to work to fix any mistake made.

James Fortcamp, a partner at the Chicago-based firm Seyfarth Shaw, represented Ricketts and Légère in an appeal of the proposed 2014 assessment, property records show.

In the Board of Review appeal he filed, Fortcamp included a picture of the demolished property more than three years after its replacement had been completed, according to the Tribune. The Ricketts' lawyer also told the board the house was built in 1918 and was only 2,534 square feet.

But in fact, the house completed in February 2010 was more than twice that size, the Tribune reported, citing building plans filed with village officials. Fortcamp, a longtime property tax appeal attorney, declined to respond to queries about why he filed paperwork seeking to appeal the value of a house that had already been demolished.

In 2006, the couple purchased a 0.37-acre parcel at 510 Laurel Ave. for $1.475 million. The next year, they bought the adjoining house at 500 Laurel Ave. on a 0.18-acre lot for $869,000, according to property records.

Ricketts and Légère demolished both houses and submitted plans to Wilmette officials for a two-story contemporary home on both properties designed by architect Dirk Denison and built by Altounian Construction, according to the Tribune. The building permit was approved in September 2007, and village and New Trier Township officials said it was sent to the Cook County Assessor's Office, which should have inspected the property after it was informed of a new piece of construction.

But the office has no records of ever receiving any notification of the new structure, the Tribune found. Tax experts told the paper the new house should have been paying a lot higher property taxes, and a comparison with the Ricketts' neighbors' smaller home suggests the annual bill for the new house would be at least $8,000 higher every year for the past nine years.

While the assessor's office never adjusted its records to take into account the new construction, tax attorney Fortcamp managed to get the lot at 500 Laurel Ave. adjusted downward from more than $700,000 to $126,000 for tax year 2014. The change was due to the property being reclassified from a house to a vacant side yard.

Fortcamp also submitted paperwork seeking to lower the assessed value of the property containing the Ricketts' new house, providing evidence the review board later told the Tribune was "outdated and inaccurate." Fortcamp was asked Tuesday when he became aware of the new construction. He has not responded.

The 2018 estimated market value of the 510 Laurel Ave. property was $993,500, according to the assessor's office. The total property tax bill on the two lots combined was approximately $26,000.

Were the two parcels assessed at the value of what Ricketts paid for them — setting aside any increase in value from the custom-built mansion completed in 2010 — their annual tax bill would be roughly $10,000 more every year, according to a review of property tax bills of comparable nearby properties.

Emails from the inbox of family patriarch Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, detail how former Cubs owners Sam Zell and the Tribune Company managed to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax liability through a "shady tax-dodging scheme" with the cooperation of the Ricketts family, Deadspin reported in March.

Todd Ricketts was so upset that the Cubs owners were not gifted taxpayer money to pay for upgrades to Wrigley Field, the emails revealed, that he suggested the family "should contemplate moving, or at least recognize that we are maybe not the right organization to own the Cubs."

The Cubs owners wound up receiving federal tax credits and a Cook County property tax break for the renovations, according to the Tribune.

Légère, Ricketts' French Canadian wife, is a founder of the nonprofit Policy Circle, which began in their living room and has grown to 1,400 members in 18 states, according to its website. The group holds "off the record" discussions focused on how "public policy should foster creativity in a open economy and that government should spend our tax dollars responsibly."

The group describes itself as non-partisan and is prohibited from direct political lobbying. In the past, Légère has advocated for cutting costs at local school districts and blocking increases in the minimum wage.

Studies have found the Cook County property tax assessment and appeal system has shifted wealth from the poorest taxpayers to the owners of the most expensive homes. The rate of appeals is more than 20 times higher than in other jurisdictions, with powerful property tax appeal firms — such as the ones run political powerbrokers like House Speaker Mike Madigan and indicted Chicago Ald. Ed Burke — benefiting from a regressive system that disproportionately burdens black and Latino homeowners in Chicago's West and South sides, according to an independent analysis published last year.

Read more from the Chicago Tribune

Related:

• Todd Ricketts To Host Trump Fundraiser In Wisconsin
• Website Publishes Joe Ricketts' Racist Emails
• Cubs Co-Owner Becomes RNC Finance Chair
• Todd Ricketts Withdraws From Nomination To Trump Cabinet