The Cook County Board of Review (BOR) announced earlier this week that homeowners seeking to appeal their Cook County property tax assessments will be able to do so online through a state of the art Digital Appeals Processing System (DAPS).
County homeowners have had the ability to appeal their property tax assessments online for about four years; however, they can now create standing digital accounts to receive important assessment information, such as the results of their appeals, township openings and closings, and updates on the appeals process. They can also upload backup files to the board’s website.
Before the county’s digital transition, paper appeals documentation was handled physically, “sorted, indexed and transported from staff to staff and upon completion, stored in three separate storage areas,” according to a BOR statement.
In 2013 and 2014, the BOR reviewed appeals on 428,000 and 319,000 property index numbers (PINs), respectively. Starting this year, BOR analysts will be able to transmit these PINs with the clicks of a keyboard and computer mouse.
“As taxpayers face rising property tax bills and more and more seek relief, our new DAPS technology will make pursuing appeals more convenient for taxpayers and the processing of appeals more efficient for our staff. We want to ensure that no taxpayer is paying more than their fair share of property taxes,” Cook County BOR Commissioner Larry Rogers, Jr. noted in a statement.
Last year, the BOR picked the firm DataBank in a competitive bid process to implement the new digital system, which costs $781,000 over three years.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the switch to DAPS is a significant improvement on the sluggish paper-based system that was in place when she took office five years ago.
“We have worked very hard to upgrade what we inherited when we took office, which was old technology — legacy systems that in many cases were 20 or 30 years old. The Board of Review is moving its technological operations into the 21st century, a major step forward and one that will have great benefits for property owners throughout the county,” she said.
Homeowners can click here to appeal their property taxes online. For more information, click here.
