When I see an article like this -- summary: a man overpaid taxes after Lancaster County screwed up -- I always wonder what the outcome would be if the shoe were on the other foot. I'd be surprised if the government would let the problem just go away. Since the government is us (theoretically), shouldn't the rules be written to help protect us and what's right in this sort of situation?
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I test and support software for county government assessors and treasurers in NE, OK, and WA. I don’t know where Norm is getting his information, or maybe he just didn’t respond well, but NE treasurers and assessors to tax roll corrections and refunds of erroneous assessment/taxes due every day on properties. It sounds more to me like he’s on something related to his anti-greenbelt kick, or his appraisers are lazy-either way it’s his failing. He owes this guy, and probably the other guy too. Norms problem is that the money has already been collected by the Treasurers and distributed to the entities.
Things like this DO happen, though and Norm should just man up and deal with it. In WA their counties were advised of a law change that said they could take a percentage of A and a slightly lower percentage of B and keep it, for doing the administration and collection, an administration fee. For the last few years, however, all counties were collecting the higher percentage on both chunks of money because the wording of the law was so nebulous that none of the treasurers thought they were doing it wrong. They now have to pay back from their general fund .03% for four years. So, these things DO happen, and treasurers DO refund large sums of money back to taxpayers-you just aren’t in a position to hear about it most of the time unless its fraudulent or it makes the news some other way.
Thanks for the info, CS!
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