By Maggie Behringer
Correspondent
DALTON, Ga. — Whitfield County residents soon may receive relief from once-a-year property tax bills.
County commissioners are considering a new billing schedule that would allow residents to split their bills, paying half in June and half in December.
“Christmas is a horrible time to come up with tax money,” Tax Commissioner Danny Sane said. “I can’t do anything to raise or lower taxes, but I can offer options.”
When his office installed its computer system, Mr. Sane developed software that automatically calculates a resident’s payments halfway through the year based on the previous year’s millage rate.
Under the new schedule, December bills would include the remaining half of the total tax plus the difference between the previous year’s taxes and the current year’s taxes.
“The positive is you can pay it earlier,” Commission Chairman Mike Babb said. “People like choices, is what it comes down to.”
The county would have a better cash flow, too, and wouldn’t have to operate all year on money collected during a single month. This would prevent any need to borrow should the county or school system come up short during the summer, officials said.
Commissioners stressed that the program would be voluntary.
Mandating twice-yearly payments “puts a bad taste in people’s mouths,” Commissioner Harold Brooker said.
Mr. Sane said 87 percent of homes in the county pay property taxes from mortgage escrow accounts. For those homeowners, the banksautomatically would send out the June payment.
Penalties for delinquent payments would remain the same as those currently in place should a homeowner pay the midyear tax bill but fail to pay the December portion.
Homeowners are charged 1 percent interest for every month the bill is unpaid. After 90 days, the taxcommissioner’s office records a lien on the property. After 91 days, there’s a 10 percent interest charge plus fees.
Mr. Sane estimated that a typical year’s 90-day delinquency list usually reaches 5,500 parcels. However, for 2009 the list totaled only 3,300 parcels.
Commissioners have asked Mr. Sane and Finance Officer Ron Hale to complete a report on the potential cost of implementing the program, specifically the additional labor costs and postage.
While Mr. Sane does not anticipate the need to hire any full-time employees, temporary workers may be needed for data entry for two weeks in June.
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