Hamilton County’s finance committee met today and began untangling a mess of calculations resulting from years of taxpayers in bankruptcy overpaying and underpaying the county trustee’s office.
The committee will recommend the County Commission repay taxpayers at a rate of 2.43 percent, on top of interest these taxpayers already paid the commission, according to committee members and Mike Carter, the county’s special counsel who helped resolve questions raised by a federal probe of the trustee’s office.
The federal investigation probed whether the office mishandled payments made toward delinquent property taxes by those in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, according to newspaper archives.
The county is accused of failing to give credit for partial payments, so the county received more from property owners than it legally was owed.
Carter also indicated there were a significant amount of underpayments.
“I think there’ll be a whole lot more bills go out than there would be checks,” he said.
Keep checking timesfreepress.com for updates and get complete details in Tuesday’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.