Township taxpayers will get a grace period for payments received late, but postmarked “on-time.”
“There are always better ways to do things and I always try to seek that out from others,” said Independence Township Treasurer Paul Brown. “While there is going to be a little more work in my office to coordinate to make sure we’re able to review those incoming pieces of mail, I certainly think it’s well worth it, so we don’t have to penalize folks who really intended for it to get here on time.”
Historically, the township doesn’t accept postmarks as a method of deciding payments are timely, Brown said.
“I have the hard task of explaining to residents whose tax payments arrive late, that there is penalty for them being late,” he added.
In recent conversations with other treasurers, Brown said he learned many of them adopted this kind of policy.
For summer tax bills, the treasurer’s office will accept all tax payments postmarked no later than Sept. 14 and received by Sept. 21 to avoid penalty and interest.
Brown said they chose the end date of Sept. 21 because they have a lockbox for mail at the bank. He also doesn’t believe it will be a huge amount they’ll be collecting.
“Maybe it will be a couple of hundred, certainly, something we can manage,” he said. “If we get it after the 21st, we’re not going to accept the postmark, so we’re giving it a fair enough time, and we’ll eliminate 70-80 percent of the folks getting hit with that penalty because of us not having accepted it.”
Winter taxes will be accepted postmarked by Feb. 14 and received by Feb. 28.
Brown said they will not accept metered mail dates.
“The winter tax bill is different. Feb. 28 is the hard cut off because on March 1 we have to turn over all the taxes that haven’t been paid over to Oakland County by law,” he added. “The county actually pays the township those monies and the county goes through the process of collecting those taxes.”
Metered mail is not acceptable because many places have mail meters, he said.
“You can run an envelope through it and have a date on it. Then, just let it sit around for a week because maybe there isn’t enough money to pay it and you just want a little extra time,” he explained. “For that reason it has to be United States postmarked.”
The board voted 6-0 to accept Brown’s request. Trustee David Lohmeier was absent.
“This is certainly going to be a first attempt at it and if I have problems, I’ll certainly bring it back to the board, but I am confident we can manage this,” Brown said. “I think this is the right thing to do.”
Supervisor Pat Kittle agreed.
“I’ve been up there with Paul (at the treasurer’s counter) on some of the receiving end of those discussions,” Kittle added. “This will be good.”