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Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc. October 28, 1999 SECTION: EDT; Pg. 35 LENGTH: 665 words BYLINE: Raymond R. Coffey Say you're a Cook County property taxpayer, You want to appeal your assessment and get a refund. You retain a tax consultant, who takes your case to the assessor's office and wins a certificate of error for you. The certificate goes to the Board of (Tax) Review for approval of your refund. But it is rejected because it includes the name of your consultant, and only lawyers ? and you ? are allowed to represent taxpayers before the board. This does happen. For two years now, I've been getting headaches trying to sort out why and how the tax appeals gravy train is reserved for lawyers. It's a muddle, but taxpayers should be aware, and wary, of it. The issue was brought to me, along with a bale of documents, by Andrea A. Raila, a board employee for four years who now has her own consulting business. Raila cited, among others, a case in which the assessor's certificate of error for one of her clients who had been overtaxed by about $2,300 was rejected by the board specifically because her name was on the paperwork. She has documentation for that in correspondence from both the assessor's office and the board. To get his money, the client was required to sign a notarized affidavit that Raila no longer was representing him. Raila and other non-lawyer consultants and lawyers are allowed to represent taxpayers in their dealings with the assessor's office. Not so with the board. The new three-member board was created last year by the Legislature as a "reform" in which Republicans and the suburbs are represented for the first time on formerly exclusive Chicago Democratic turf. None of the board members ? Chairman Maureen Murphy, a Republican from Evergreen Park, or Democratic Commissioners Joseph Berrios and Robert Shaw of Chicago ? is a lawyer. But they continue to play by the old rules, under which they explicitly advise taxpayers that "non-lawyer tax consultants, tax services, tax representatives and appraisers, agents, brokers, and consultants may not represents you before this board." Why? Supposedly to protect taxpayers from being clipped by unqualified of unethical non-lawyer representatives. The assumption seems to be that lawyers are universally qualified and on the square. "It's all politics," Raila says. Tax lawyers are big campaign contributors and they don't want consultants in this business. She has, Raila says, been "harassed and hounded" for six years in which the board repeatedly has sent the state's attorney's office to investigate whether she might be practicing law without being a lawyer. "I have lost clients," she tells me, and "they (tax lawyers and the board) have been "trying to put me out of business." To defend herself from insinuations and investigations on whether she was in effect practicing law, Raila retained lawyer Kimball R. Anderson from the Winston & Strawn firm to look into the board's rules and practices. Anderson last summer wrote two letters to the board ? one requesting an opportunity to meet to discuss the non-lawyer issue and the other asking why some tax appeal cases were being computer-coded with the letter "Q" when tax consultants were handling them. He got no response. Early this month, Anderson wrote them again, suggesting that the board's rule on non-lawyers "is legally flawed, contrary to the public interest, and should be revised." A review of practices in other large counties, Anderson wrote "demonstrates that the (Cook) board's antiquated prohibition against non-attorneys representing taxpayers before the board is in a distinct minority." He noted that the elected board commissioners are not required to be lawyers, no rules of evidence are enforced and the factual issues in a case largely involve those of property valuation. "Under the circumstances," he went on, "no one can seriously content that a rational purpose is served by granting lawyers a monopoly to appear" before the board. CFAT News Source news@fairtaxes.net Tax Appeals Law Leaves All Perplexed |
