and paid that tax bill and the the problem that arose of course is that in in this world tax bills are not always only paid by you the most frequent situation is the situation where your mortgage holder the bank or the financial institution which loaned you the money to buy your home that tracks tracks your mortgage and to the mortgage the mortgage she keeps track independently of what your property taxes are so that even though all the heap the property owner who receives the bill pays the taxes they're also being paid independently on behalf of the property owner by the financial institution and the problem of course is that most property owners do not really understand that process they write a check to their mortgage company once a month and to them they say they paid their mortgage they really are not aware of the fact that their property taxes are being paid by the mortgage company and in cook county at least until this lawsuit was filed in two thousand  nobody told the property tax owner that that was being done after this lawsuit was filed the process was changed and in cook and we've got an example of that attached to our complaint after the lawsuit was filed  treasurer in cook county when when they receive these double payments notifies the taxpayer by the way your bill is ready been paid and there's even new the case for new sa statutes now to require the pay or the financial institution to tell me statutory right of relief only to those taxpayers overpay due to a premature assessment or double assessment isn't it more likely and maybe even clearer in the legislative that the legislature was allowing the refund to anyone given the problem we have here is that if that in our situation it could county if the taxpayer goes back to the treasure within five years you can get the money back but if it's more than five years the treasurer takes the position that after five years i have a right to keep that money it's not entirely our argument was not centered entirely upon twenty desh one seventy five the statute that you're on it talks about but if that was the legislature's intent legislatures intent was to protect the taxpayer in this situation our position is they didn't do it and we've got the one comment by one legislator that they were talking about over pay taxes and the problem i think that occurred was if you read the legislative history michelin there were two separate and men mensa lawford one was adopted separately that was twenty one dash sixty that was the amendments that cheered that this situation where a property tax o his first assessment and then because of some other events it turns out that the first assessment is more money that would be old for the whole year and he could get that money back before so twenty one days sixty was separately passed to protect the taxpayer in that situation for some reason this other separate legislative proposal instead of being passed as a separate section like twenty one sixty was they tried to do something to twenty dash one seventy five and our position is that when they did that no matter what they intended to do they didn't do it because if you read twenty desh one seventy five it talks about property that's twice assessed or assessed before their p before it can be comes taxable and then it goes on to talk about the to say if any property twice assessed or assessed before taxable and the common or if most taxes or if taxes have been overpaid by the same claimant but it doesn't read that we're so your position is really a statutory construction and saying the best evidence of legislative intent is the words themselves and you say that they were magical structure that supports that this statute doesn't apply in this situation that's exactly correct it is i was taught english by some very strict nuns and looking at what's in here legislators were thinking and evidence that that this statute twenty desh one seventy five is meant to be limited is supported by two things one is this incredibly long history of very strictly construing tax payment statutes and tax refund statutes and everything else the other point is that if twenty dash one seventy five now covers all kinds of overpayments which is the county's position a number of things become immediately redundant because everything is an overpayment if it's going to be given that broad of a term assessment if my assessment is too high i overpay if the levy was a little i've overpaid because i never should have been paid if it's been twice assessed for the same year which isn't the same provision it's overpaid twenty one dash sixty where were my first instalment is it turns out to be more than the entire year's tax it's an overpayment is it your understanding as the it is it is that was then that was alleged in our complaint as a matter of fact that i made the number of fifty one of them automatically send them right back to you and almost all the other all the others credited your first payment to your next year's taxes and that really goes back to the real point that we have here is that none of this should apply in the first place because these are not tax payments that's really the heart of our argument these are payments outside of the property tax code because when the second payment hits the desk of the treasurer the treasurer knows it's not tax payment a tax a payment is a payment of an obligation i think that's the lever roni case and another federal district court case when you pay something you pay an obligation when the second check is written or the second wire transfer occurs it's actually a wire transfer from the financial institutions in bulk there is no obligation it cannot and the treasury now the person paying the taxes thinks they're writing a tax payment but the recipient the treasurer knows it's not a tax payment and the treasurer has only authority under chapter fifty five it's five slash three days one zero zero zero five the treasurer only has authority to keep money that the treasurer that he or she is authorized to take and received by law and nothing in the law authorizes the treasurer to take more money the treasurer and thirty two of our brief it it says it's a payment a payment this something that discharge is an obligation well this obligation was discharged when the first payment was recorded by the treasurer the second payment there was no obligation and you cannot discharge an obligation that doesn't exist anymore which is probably why the other counties give the money back it has to rest and i'm sorry the  appellate court and its opinion and i think your opponent both suggest that if the statute is not available to people who are in the position of your clients short of the statute of limitations but if this statute is correct i mean michael if my position of our clients position is correct and we are able to and these are not tax payments and they're not subject to the voluntary payment doctrine well then we can't get this money back and so the court i think there is no statutory vehicle those are the those are the remedies that we say are available because these are not anything that is what if you're successful and it turns out not to be available some other court rules that it's not and everybody is who is protected by this bill would no longer be protected by because they would be involved with taxpayer yeah you could there be it would end up to be a scenario that's right if i'm wrong if my position is wrong it is going to be what it always has been a more limited recovery and the legislature would have to go back and we would say do it right wh they intended to do or not i quoted just disconnect because he had i thought just a good statement you know you can't read words into the statute if the legislature made a mistake if they made a mistake we're pretty much all to use the for next you're stuck with it until it's fixed and we think that language these weren't tax payments you're saying that this situation is then protected forever is a position that you don't have to come within the five years statute and could still bring such an action common law action any correct you would except that you would then be arguably i know what the responses there i mean even the common law remedies that we would have on jet conversion or on just enrichment would be subject to whatever statute of limitations governs there but then you run into discovery rules and it makes it much easier it increases the window for the taxpayer to get their money back if if that if then answers the question never again there's also the possibility if we would rule in your direction in this case the legislature with a call by this board to take a look at it or just looking at the case on the wrong may come up with another i would think it would be it would probably be done almost immediately because it's not hard to do i don't even i can draft a statute that's clear and get it done i think the problem was people were not that case the the poor property you want to got a tax bill and he paid his taxes no no fear that that person was paying it out when our second payment was made we were not under obligation this gentleman again i'm way it was under a legal obligation that means he was subject to the voluntary payment doctrine which is what this is all about it the voluntary payment doctrine normally prevents me from getting my money back if if i paid an obligation and i've got full knowledge about what i'm paying a the poor guy got a tax bill and he paid it and he wanted it back and the treasury said no it's a voluntary payment you can't have it back you we have taken your money and this court said there was never a tax levy in that case and there couldn't be a tax bill and this court said in that case it's not a voluntary payment the treasury didn't have any money i'm sorry that the treasury did not have authority to accept the money and therefore the t the player was able to get his money back and that's really our position here we would like the right to get our money back on the think on the grounds that the treasurer never had any grounds for taking it in the first place keeping in mind that a treasury can only take monies that they have a right to take and they can only disperse monies that they have a right that they have no right there's nothing as i said before there's nothing in the rules that allows the treasurer to taking keep this money it's just there ironically there is no claim of rights of possession by the treasurer all the treasurer this treasurer is saying is that once i have it a certain period of time i don't have to give it back i just don't and another remedy another way around this of course is that it's also possible that this money should simply be paid on to the state treasurer which is what some of the other counties do if the treasurer of cook county will not give it back and it's unclaimed property by statute it should go county treasurer what to do and that is to turn the money over like this that you said you said you should underneath all of this i think it's just the spirit of well this is a great deal of money it's over a long period of time what should this mean to the to the financial status of the county but the bottom line is that if you look at the cook county website treasurer's website and we  cited to it someplace in our brief the amount of monies that are actually taken in i think are something like nine billion dollars to this and the amount that issue here is such an incredibly small percentage of that and stunned to correct the problem in some of these cases is to adjust future tax levies in future payments so it's not as if somebody reaches in their pocket and pays it back the bottom line is they're not reaching into their pockets and giving back something that is their supreme court case because that is the case that the appellate court really relied upon and saying that when we're talking about overpayments we mean all over payments of any kind interestingly enough  briefs the county never relied upon footnote six and down it was the appellate court that really took it upon itself to interpret that and our position on that is simply that it is the most extreme dicta because footnote six and the dissent talked about the difference between taxes wrongly collected because they were wrongfully retained or taxes wrongfully paid the majority came back with this footnote that talks about overpaid taxes or any taxes paid for tax bills or any reason at all it's such a throwaway line in a footnote that would be hard to believe that that court would be addressing what we're talking about here today which is monies paid inadvertently without a tax bill being present keeping in mind that the issue of dong that taxpayer had no choice and she opted to pay the wrong tax but there was a tax obligation due she happened to think it was a gift tax and she paid the wrong tax which she had no choice in our case there was no tax and we paid the bill is a prop is a creature of the property tax code and indeed the property tax can quote coach controls pretty much every album germane material matters in this lawsuit it controls billing procedures procedures for payment the collectors duties council referred to some of the duties of the treasurer under the counties called every member treasurer was to have she's the treasurer of her county but she's also the ex official collector and those are two different duties indeed as a collector it's her duty to collect tax revenue and so when taxes are paid regardless whether they're paid correctly or in error sometimes that money goes to the taxing districts and this court has recognized over the years over a number of years that because of the there's really three problems with place the first of all that the allegations they've made are anecdote saying some counties handled this differently and then cook county there's really no there's no proper allegations in the record to that effect but regardless of what other collectors number in the second point i would make is it's a property tax code that has to control it has to ought provide the guidelines for how collectors collect taxes and upon proper application for refund refund taxes and the third point i your question i'm not sure whatever other collectors are doing but i don't think it matters i mean what matters is well what the property tax code provides and what the fences a provides and you know what's the net and has the property tax i think when one considers and looks at you know what it was the legislature was trying to do when one looks at the title of section twenty one seventy five and the title is refunds for oversight for which i get to strike refunds hundred three session and at volume three page thirty eight thirty six eighty six had a recount of acacia of the former chapter one twenty paragraph seven sixty seven to now thirty five miles yes two hundred slash twenty dash one i think the title sort of shows where the legislature was going that they intended to broaden the scope of section twenty one seventy five when this when the amended to said should in one thousand nine hundred five and clearly the intent was to make it make the application broader to include to provide a remedy for refunds for overpayment so i would i would say as to the subject of the first part of the sentence and twenty one seventy five is property  right if any property the properties the subject and you read the first part and talks about are only suspense and then you get to overpaid the property can't be overpaid i think the only way this statute makes sense is to assume that referring to taxes and property taxes i think that's appropriate because of sastre of the subject of the property tax code is property taxes and clearly when one looks at the intent of the legislatures as evidenced by the comments from the from senator moore and speaker that week that we included in and have brief in legislative history when one looks at the title and looks the overall purpose i think the appropriate reading grammatical reading of the of the statute is the one we propose the broader one that would actually provide greater rel argument they've advanced is that taxes were were inadvertently overpaid but i think it's important to remember that is taxes are overpaid in a particular instance they're either overpaid by the taxpayer themself him or herself or someone acting on their behalf of wonder for example example that council used and i think the question is is it more fair to say that the legislature such as we're going to give you the taxpayer five years to sort this out to figure it out and come in they ask for a refund  they would have no riposte they would have no ability essentially to term and how to set a budget because they would never know what their liabilities are if on tax refund claims to be made indefinitely into the future so i think a better  reading and a more consistent reading of twenty one seventy five in accordance with the voluntary payment doctrine is that bound that section twenty one seventy five provide relief provides relief from the voluntary payment action but only to the extent that a taxpayer comes in and m painted i think is is sort of self evident it would be excuse where someone comes in or more taxes are paid than they're actually build an effect the public or below discussed that implied a very the definition of overpaid from the dictionary which was and the reply brief plaintive suggest the difference a cruel rule which is that claim such as this would not accrue until a taxpayer came in made a claim and was turned down but the problem with that as that would it make sense limitations in next five thousand dollars that comes in is not an overpayment because there's no payment due it's just there's no obligation i think the answer that you're analyzing the challenge repayment action so voluntarily pay tax and the but i would point out i was cite in support of that the property tax code itself twenty one seventy five is the title refunds for overpayments if overpayments weren't tax payments why would there need to be a section of the property tax code for overpayment so it is a tax payment there i think it's important number that the collector here issued a tax bill for the right amount and there's no coercion no darusman if someone or and or their agents made a mistake and made two payments or one larger overpayment property tax code still has to provide the rules and the and the procedures for obtaining a refund and because absent that going back to the number of cases in this court going back to gil and the other case we've cited there would be no remedy and  the talk for a moment about the notion of something counsel said you know in his in his argument that the treasurer in his youth account players who takes a position that after five years treasure collector keeps the money but will point out once again that is not the law these tax revenues not the property of the collector and not the property of cook county again she may be the cook county treasurer but she's also the ex official collector with two days to tax in district and under both section twenty one forty of the property tax code which mandates that the collector distribute all tax revenue has received to the tax in districts and section twenty one forty five which penalizes a collector for not  the processing of refunds which means that again the rules set for if you have to come in in five years it's her obligation if someone does so and she says hide the facts of the case chill issue a refund if that she's that serious side of the facts of the case the statute provides for feel situations where ownership of property never changes hands and clearly that's not the case here when one pays your taxes they write a check or give some tender some currency to the collector and property does change hands and money is paid to the government not to say that that money can't be a refunded one of where appropriate but to suggest a property in that changed hands is just not it's not is not the law doesn't it's not not right that not a correct statement of the law should say x mentioned a moment ago about when claims were overpayments accrued even though it's not at issue particularly this suit just to kind of explain how i think twenty how we think twenty one seventy five works like to talk about think is consistent with the finding below the appellate court that claims for over pay taxes accrue upon payment and that really the court both did was follow this court's decision and sundance homes and council indicate before the down case we did site sundance homes and are in our brief below in our brief to this court and sunday and in sundance homes this court relied upon down i think was perfectly appropriate for the public court to do so and i think down and sundance homes as council actually referred to it is true that they brought common law constitutional claims and as we stated before under gill never caissons court there is no common law or constitutional claim for a refund but i would point out that the statute of limitations those injunction to clear tory relief we said from national the national private truck council case we don't believe that that relief of bail bill under section eight hundred eighty three is construed by the supreme court and also in illinois equitable jurisdiction is that argument is also a sort of a red herring i think twenty one sixty deals with a situation where it accounting for accelerated billing and you have a situation where the first installment payment of the following year is half of the tax paid the previous year but what happens if say for example a tax was five thousand dollars and so on a piece of property which burns down on our property zero value zero but you still get charged with half of the twenty five hundred for the  these were not tax revenues tax revenues occur where where there's a there's has to be an assessment where somebody is handed a budget budget where there's been a levy these cannot be tax revenues nobody counted on these monies nobody could possibly have expected that no tag not not one of the seven hundred taxing districts in cook county so it's down says you know every year we get about an extra five percent because people make mistakes this is not something that's a tax revenue and it's important because we're talking about tax payments and we're talking about overpayment we're not just talking about overpayment in the sense that we use in every day world we're talking about a very kind of fight situation and the statutes have always been drafted to protect the tax or not to protect that statute said actually been drafted to make sure the money does not usually get back they have to craft an exception for tax revenues and they've always been concerned about protecting tax revenues because i think it's the indomie side bill and bill says tax revenues are the lifeblood of the government these are not life but these are not revenues and because they're not revenues they're not tax payments we get into the voluntary payment doctrine and we've cited cases in our brief  giri an era of voluntary payment occurs where there's an actual basis for the recipient's claim of entitlement and that wasn't the case here the treasurer knows that the bill was paid and to the pair has to have knowledge about the source of the claim so to put it in english so that as i paid the bill and there's got to be some reason for me to think i have to pay it in this case it's the first time they paid it yes the second time no the second time and that's my point the second part of the of the premise is that the taxpayer has to know basically has to know that that that the not because because neither payer knew the other had already paid  well when you determine when the weather when it is it is a exactly have is it a tax payment i'm sorry i'm going to cut you off because i i roll my eyes and myself as i tried to make sense of how to say this as i write it i think it's a tax payment but i'm  fits into council statement that if if we had just how how how could we do that how we draft an order that said it goes to the first payment but we don't with things i mean is there a little  there that they would lead to my point that when the treasurer gets the payment under twenty that's forty i hope i have that section right the the the treasurer enters it into the workbook it's a payment the treasury the treasurer doesn't have to discover the second payment they don't have to look through the whole office to find out when that second payment comes in it comes in for a pin number a property identification number when the treasurer gets a second payment on behalf of that same property owner they know that there when they when they go to record it the pince going to show that it's been paid and therefore at that moment the treasurer knows that that was a mistake that it wasn't tax revenue that the tag that the treasurer knows that he or she has no right to keep that money because they know it wasn't payment of a tax bill so if you're radically you know it is pointless money anyway they're paying the mortgage company it correct yesterday so it's their money one way or the other  written it because we use different textbooks nonetheless when that second check comes in even told my wife thought she was paying a tax obligation it wasn't the tax obligation anymore at least when it got to the desk because counsel mentioned it's because there's a wrongful assessment and over assessment only in that sense i'll let me that's been in print out there if there's a huge body of litigation over improper levies when when the when the tax levy is put out it has to be it has to be done they were unconstitutional those are still those are tax overpayments in the sense that they probably should never have been paid but those were all payments that were made because when that money went in and when the money was received there was a legal duty to do it people relied upon them this is the one instance where it was completely inadvertent inadvertent in the sense that there really wasn't a tax being paid because it had already been paid and i