When it is time to vote for politicians , especially those whose who impact my profession life get the thumbs up or thumbs down based upon how they have impacted me personally and professionally.
Joe Berrios the Cook County Assessor has just lost my vote and should lose yours as well. They changed the Assessor’s website to make PIN searches impossible to do.
Typically during tax time we spend time looking up PIN numbers on the Assessor’s website. We use this information for the property tax deduction on the Illinois return. The Pin and county are required to get the deduction on the Illinois return.
But, we also need the PIN to verify property taxes on the Illinois Treasurer’s website. This is for the property tax deduction on Schedule A.
We just had a client whose 1098 had a property tax number that we thought was low, we were able to look up the PIN on the Assessor’s website , then looked up the correct property tax amount.
But that search is now impossible. The Assessor’s website took off our ability to look up a PIN by address. Now you need a PIN to look up everything on their website. Hell, the only reason we went to the website was to get the PIN!
When I called to inquire why the change I received the typical political hack response you are now envisioning. It was Cook County politics at their worst.
Now that the Assessor’s office has made my job much more difficult and slowed down our process, he will not get my vote, nor should Joe Berrios get your! My anti-Berrios campaign will continue until the website is modified to again include a PIN lookup by address again.