Cook County property tax bills posted online after months-long delay
CHICAGO (CBS) – Cook County property tax bills were posted online Tuesday, after months of delay.
Homeowners should also get a copy of their tax bills in the mail around Dec. 1, and those bills will be due by Dec. 30. The tax bills will reflect changes to property assessments made last year.
When you get the bill, you can pay it online, for free.
Cook County property tax bills are coming out months late. Payment is normally due by Aug. 1. It's been a frustrating delay for county leaders and government agencies that rely on property tax revenue, such as libraries, public schools, park districts, and more.
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas explained all 1.8 million property tax bills are already available online, so taxpayers can download their bill and pay online, or visit any Chase bank to pay in person, or visit Pappas' office at the Cook County Building, at 118 N. Clark St. in downtown Chicago.
"We are getting this up online because the delay has been so long. We are giving people a heads-up, especially commercial lenders and residential lenders who want to know what the amounts of the bill, since the City of Chicago has been reassessed. So get yourself to cookcountytreasurer.com," Pappas said.
Property owners can find their tax bill by putting in their address or Property Index Number (PIN).
You can also find out if you've received a homeowner's exemption, senior exemption, or senior freeze. You can also check for overpaid property taxes from as far back as 20 years to apply for a refund if you owned your property at the time of the overpayment.
"It's been a technological advance that we were able to get all of this up and running this morning," Pappas said.
Pappas said Chicago taxpayers will be seeing changes in their tax bill this year, because all property in the city was reassessed last year, meaning your bill might have gone up or down depending on how your property's assessed value changed.
Property owners are still facing a March 1 deadline for first-installment property tax bills next year, and Pappas said it's unknown if the Cook County Board will extend that deadline to April 1, after this year's second-installment bills were delayed so long.
"If you've got to pay Dec. 30th, and then you've got to pay March 1st, that's quite a bit of crunch time, even though people liked not having to pay for six months, because they were able to hold the money," Pappas said.