Pappas to host Tax Refund workshop at St. George Church
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and the American Arab Chamber of Commerce will host another property tax refund workshop on Sunday Oct. 31, 2021 at Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church. Pappas working with the Chamber board and president Hassan Nijem have help secure refunds of more than $360,000 to Arab American property owners, a part of the millions refunded to all Cook County Taxpayers
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas will be at Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church, 1220 S. 60th Court, Cicero, on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
At the event, organized with Arab-American Chamber of Commerce President Hassan Nijem, Treasurer Pappas and a team from the Treasurer’s Office will help people search and apply for $72 million in available refunds going back 20 years and $43 million in missing exemptions going back four years.
“The program has been very successful in identifying money that was either overpaid or not claimed by property tax owners in Cook County,” Nijem said.
“The property tax refund workshops Pappas has organized help all communities throughout Cook County to identify refunds they deserve and then claim them. We are proud that Treasurer Pappas recognizes the effectiveness of working through the many ethnic, religious and racial communities to ensure that everyone is able to take advantage of this program.”
Nijem also credited the support of the American Chamber of Commerce board of trustees who have achieved so many goals during the past year including the $360,000 in tax refunds for Arab Americans, the fight that stopped Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot from closing Arab stores, and the work that helped the Chicago City Council detail a ban on the sale and use of flavored tobacco by young people while protecting Arab American owned Hookah lounges who use the tabicco legitimately for adults over the age of 21 only.
Nijem added that the refund workshops have been held at several Mosques in Chicago serving the region’s large Islamic community and added that it was also very important to reach out to the Christian Arab community.
“We are all brothers and sisters and we all work together. That’s the message we are bringing as we go to St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in the Town of Cicero to help parishioners there secure the property tax refunds they deserve,” Nijem said.
St. George Church is one of the largest and oldest Christian Arab Orthodox Churches int he Chicagoland area and has more than 2,400 family members.
For more information on Maria Pappas’s tax refund program, visit www.cookcountytreasurer.com.
For information on the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, the only Arab Chamber in Chicagoland that actually works to help Arab businesses and has a track record of achievements to prove it, visit www.AACCUSA.org.
Click here to read more reports on the American Arab Chamber of Commerce campaign with Treasurer Maria Pappas to secure overpaid property taxes for Arab Americans.
Click here to read more on the refund campaign in the American Arab community.
Click here to read about how the American Arab Chamber fights for the rights of Arab businesses.
Nijem credited the support of the Chamber board that includes: Aminah Adnan, Alder Tareq Al Biter, Hana Abudayyeh, Radi Abuhashish, Abed Ayash, Mazen Dola, Ibrahim Fattah, Mahar Khattab, Samer Khatib, Saad Malley, Lena Matariyeh, Amna Mustafa, Amir Nijem. Mustapha is the former and first ever member of the Chicago Board of Education.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
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Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
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Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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