Property-tax checks of taxpayers who made them out for too much payment money are being lowered to the correct amount by the Cook County Treasurer's Office, it was announced today.

Treasurer Maria Pappas said the program means that about 20,000 taxpayers yearly will not have to apply for refunds to recover over $1 million in overpayments made in error.

"Taxpayers should not 'loan' government money because they made a simple error on a payment check," Pappas said. "And government has the responsibility to not take their money if it can avoid it."

Property-tax bills for the second installment of Tax Year 2001 were mailed recently by the Treasurer's Office for 1.7 million parcels of property. The bills are due November 1.

Over the year's two payment periods, the Treasurer's Office receives some 20,000 such "overpayments," checks made out by taxpayers for more than the bill they receive. Most of the more than $1 million in these overpayments appear to be simple check-writing errors, Pappas said.

In the first days of the new program, the Office received more than 800 overpayment checks from taxpayers with almost $130,000 in overpayments. The Office lowered the check amounts to the amounts billed and is notifying the taxpayers about the changes.

Pappas advised taxpayers to pay only the amount on the "Amount due if paid by" line on the upper left hand corner of the bill and include their name, address, Property Index Number, telephone number and any e-mail address on the check. The amount due is also on the "on time" line on the upper left hand corner of the coupon that is to be detached from the bill and returned with payment.

"Making this change when the initial error is detected is a win-win for all," Pappas said, noting that her Office will save time and money by correcting checks immediately instead of processing refunds later.