Letter to the editor: Tax collector explains procedures

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Editor’s note: This letter is in response to the letter, “Borough needs to more,” which ran in the May 6 edition of the Citizen’s News.

In response to Mr. Kapadia’s letter to the editor in the May 6 Citizen’s News, it would be easy enough for the Tax Office to send out reminders. It would be an increase cost to taxpayers, which we do not need. We send out a three-part bill in June, which includes a reminder for January this is to save the additional tax dollars on postage. We also post in this newspaper six times a year including December and twice in January that taxes are due by the end of January.

The Borough of Naugatuck is in the process of purchasing software upgrades that may allow us to e-mail out invoices at no additional cost to the taxpayer. I would like to e-mail out all invoices and reminders to save money and in the not-to-distant future we should be able to do this for all taxpayers who would like to receive their bills electronically. I do not have the individual phone numbers for those who did not pay to call on an emergency call list as suggested by Mr. Kapadia.

It is not our intention to try to collect fees from taxpayers but without some form of penalty it would be difficult to collect taxes on time from every taxpayer. I feel bad for Mr. Kapadia that he had to pay a penalty but the Tax Office has to follow the law and cannot relieve interest on bills. We do not consider a bill late until 30 days after the due date which is Jan 1. The taxpayer had until Feb. 2 because of the way the weekend fell at the end of the month to pay without penalty. We sent out delinquent notices in March due April 1. Although the taxpayer has 30 days grace period to pay a bill state statue says interest goes back to the due date, notices went out five weeks after the last possible day to pay.

I hope I explained the process well enough it can be complicated. If anyone has any further Tax Department questions you can always feel free to contact me at the office at (203) 720-7051 or via e-mail jgoggin@naugatuck-ct.gov or my cell phone (203) 996-6675.

Jim Goggin

Naugatuck Tax Collector