Apply for a refund yourself and keep the money you would have paid to a third party

By Maria Pappas

Some Cook County homeowners are bombarded with ads and solicitations from vendors offering help to obtain refunds on their property taxes.

My office has about $93 million available in potential refunds for property tax overpayments going back 20 years. Another $57 million is available in potential payouts for missed exemptions for the past four years.

Applying for a refund is so easy, you don’t need a third party. Chances are you’re better off applying yourself. That way you can keep the full amount of your refund — tax free — without having a pay a percentage to someone to do it for you.

A key point about applying for a refund for overpayment is that you need to provide proof of your payment. The requirement protects taxpayers by ensuring that your overpayment is refunded to you and not a subsequent or prior owner of the property.

The simple process starts by visiting my website, cookcountytreasurer.com. On the home page you’ll see a purple box that says Your Property Tax Overview. Click on that box and you can find out if a refund is available for your property.

You will need to enter your 14-digit Property Index Number, or PIN. If you don’t know your PIN, you can search using your property address. Enter the house number, street name and town. You do not need to enter the direction of the street (north, south, east or west) or abbreviations for avenue, road, etc.

Next, you should see a picture of your property. That lets you know you’ve found the right place. Click on the words View Your Property Tax Information and that will take you to a page with a wealth of information about your property and the taxes that have been billed over the years.

When you scroll down you will see a section that says Are There Any Overpayments on Your PIN? If the answer is yes, you will see information highlighted in red about the amount of a potential refund and in what year or years overpayments occurred.

It will say Refund Available, Application Required, Apply Now. If you click on Apply Now, a refund application will appear. Information including your PIN, the tax year for which a refund is available and the taxpayer name will already populate fields in the form.

You will be asked to provide additional information including a phone number and email address. You will be asked to check a box certifying that you are entitled to a refund and that you have not already received one. Then you can submit the form electronically. You should receive your refund in about six to eight weeks.

That’s it. That’s all it takes to find out if a refund is available for you and how to apply for it. It’s simple, and my office provides you with the publicly available information at no cost. There is no need to pay an individual or company to file a refund application on your behalf.

Before you leave the website, check out the grid that says Have You Received Your Exemptions in These Tax Years, which is located just below Are There Any Overpayments on Your PIN. The grid will tell you whether your property received Homeowner, Senior Citizen, Senior Freeze and other exemptions in recent years.

You can use the website to apply for a refund for missed exemptions going back four years.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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