Both are legitimate reasons for rejecting a payment, he said.

Others were rejected because they appeared to have been backdated. Some checks weren’t posted because they hadn’t been properly filled out, like someone forgetting to write in the cents portion of the bill, he said. Township Manager Michael Taylor, who said he also got numerous complaints from residents about tax penalties they thought were unfair, told the Local that he can’t say how many of those complaints were legitimate. “Now I would need the full $1,100, because we can’t accept partial payments of real estate taxes.” “The tax collector has to send it back to you,” Nelson said. So if the original $1,000 check either arrives or gets processed after the due date, it would need to be returned. This means that if a person mails a tax payment via check, say for $1,000, before the due date but the check doesn’t get credited to their account until after the due date, a 10% late penalty will automatically be assessed. “Which is the tricky part for people.”įurther complicating the issue, according to Nelson, is that tax collectors cannot legally accept partial payment of a bill. “As with any bill, until you see the money come out of your account you have to understand that that obligation hasn’t been settled,” he said. Napoleon Nelson, a former tax collector for Cheltenham Township, these people may be out of luck.

In reality, the bill isn’t paid until the check clears.Īnd according to Joelle Kleinman, Springfield County’s current tax collector, it’s “the taxpayer’s responsibility to make sure the check clears.”Īs a result, residents who mail checks and don’t see the funds withdrawn from their account have no way to prove the check was mailed in a timely fashion.Īccording to State Rep. This creates problems for taxpayers who assume their tax bill is paid once the check is mailed. The second would be to have a bank statement that shows the funds were withdrawn before the due date. The first would be to get a receipt, which is typically issued when payment is received. There are two ways residents who pay their taxes can make sure they get credited on time.

Tax collector lower merion township