Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and ABC 7 Chicago will host an “Our Homes Matter” phone bank Sept. 14 to help taxpayers learn if they are owed refunds.
Taxpayers may call 312-603-5105 between 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14 at the Cook County Treasurer’s Office. Phone bank representatives will help taxpayers search for potential refunds by checking whether property taxes were overpaid for the past 20 years. Callers can also discover whether they are entitled to refunds for missed exemptions for the past four years.
Samantha Chatman, consumer investigative reporter with ABC7’s I-Team, will report on the phone bank throughout the day. Phone bank callers may provide an address to researchers who can look up a parcel’s Property Index Number, or PIN.
Phone bank workers will help callers by searching $84 million in available property tax refunds, checking eligibility for $34 million in missing property tax exemptions and verifying whether a property is on a tax sale list due to delinquent taxes.
“Duplicate payments happen all the time, and many Cook County homeowners are unaware the county owes them money,” Pappas said. “One year my own taxes were overpaid because my husband and I both paid the tax bill.”
The Treasurer’s Office and ABC7 have held seven phone banks since 2021 and helped 14,080 taxpayers identify $28.9 million owed for overpayments and missed exemptions.
Owners of residential properties may be eligible for six types of exemptions: homeowners, senior citizen, senior freeze, returning veteran, disabled person and disabled veteran.
Second installment tax bills for the 2022 tax year are expected to be mailed on or about Nov. 1 and due Dec. 1. Taxpayers may also visit the Treasurer’s website at cookcountytreasurer.com to learn more about applying for refunds, missed exemptions and other services.
