My husband and I have had the same types of experiences Laura describes, so I agree with her that the city may not actually be owed all of the money they think they are.
The city mysteriously opened up new account numbers for us when we bought a second, and then a third, storefront building on Baltimore Avenue a few years ago. The new properties should have been added to our original account with "02" and "03" added at the end of the account number, but we didn't know that! My husband was filing U&O returns for all 3 properties on that original account, & we were paid up to date. But we started getting notices that we had OVERPAID, and other notices that we had NOT PAID. Since the U&O tax amounts weren't all that large, we paid a few of the "unpaid" bills without a thorough investigation - so the city actually had (and still has) an overpayment for us. Still, we were getting more notices about unpaid U&O taxes! My husband eventually went in to the Municipal Services office and waited the long wait to talk to someone to find out what was wrong. They explained the "02" & "03" bit and straightened it out - or so they said. But the next time taxes were due, they again sent us bills for 3 different accounts. I went in and waited and explained all over again. I had proof that we'd tried before to straighten it out before - they had given my husband a print-out. So this second worker apologized (eventually) & assured me that NOW, they had it right. But the next time taxes were due....same problem. I went in again, this time with TWO print-outs showing that we & the city had tried to fix the problem.... and this time, knock on wood, it seems to have been corrected. But straightening it out doesn't automatically get you a refund, and so far, we'd been too exhausted by the process to file for a refund of our $112.38 overpayment. In another example, my son worked with me as a Philadelphia Realtor some years ago, but then quit the business and moved to California. He filed his final Philadelphia tax return from California. The city misinterpreted the going-out-of-business date on the final return - the year was written unclearly, but the date they used was for the NEXT year, not the year for which he was filing. His payment was for up to the date he'd gone out of business in the filing year; the filing date was at the end of the year he'd gone out of business; it should have been clear, to anyone who was thinking, that he couldn't have been projecting ahead to a plan to go out of business the NEXT year! There wouldn't have been any reason to mention that on the current year's tax return! Also, one puts one's phone number on a tax return; they could have called & asked. So with him in California, when we got the overdue tax notice, I again went in and waited the long wait to talk with someone. At first they said HE would have to come in to prove that he was out of business in Philadelphia, and he'd have to show a copy of his Federal tax return. But I had a copy of his California drivers license with me, with its issue date printed on it, to show when he left Philadelphia. They decided that would do, and corrected the out of business date, which stopped them from sending letters saying he owed taxes for that year - but we have since received "Unfiled Returns" notices for the following year - for the year AFTER the date now in the city's records for the termination of his business! It appears that changing the city's records in one spot doesn't update other records that would logically flow from the change. I haven't yet found the time to go back to the MSB and again wait the long wait to clear it up - and who knows if they'll talk to me this time? Another employee might again decide that he has to show up in person! Here's a third example, more serious in terms of dollars that the city claims to be owed. Clients of mine bought a vacant lot last summer. Earlier in 2011 it had sold at sheriff's sale (under the current sheriff, not the previous one whose poor record keeping is well known). That sheriff sale buyer had immediately listed it for sale for considerably more than he'd paid for it, and my buyers bought it. At settlement, the title company guaranteed that all previous taxes were paid and there were no liens against the property. A few months later, a friend of a friend of the buyers just happened to mention to the mutual friend that a lot was coming up for sheriff's sale in about 10 days... it was the lot which my buyers had bought, and a visit to the city's web site showed unpaid taxes of $17,930.72! (The 2012 taxes showed as paid, and were indeed paid, by the new owners.) Not only was the Sheriff's Dept. supposed to have taken care of the sheriff's sale paperwork, but the city should have, by then, already processed the purchaser's paperwork including the 4% transfer tax the city received for the second sale, which might have been a clue that there was a change in the old tax situation... The title company scrambled to stop the second sheriff's sale and assured the buyers that the city had been updated. Now, a few months later, the buyers just happened to check on the city's website... which shows a slightly lower unpaid tax balance of $17,448.58! Why didn't the amount change to 0? And even more puzzling, why did the amount decrease by $482.14? So, from these three examples, the city owes me $112.38; my son owes nothing; and the lot's taxes are paid, so the city is overestimating what's due by $17,448.58 on just that one small vacant lot. Multiply this by the many other mistakes the city has certainly made elsewhere, and what's due may be much less than the city's records report. Melani Melani Lamond Associate Broker Urban & Bye, Realtor 3529 Lancaster Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19104 cell phone 215-356-7266 office phone 215-222-4800, ext. 113 I-Fax 215-525-3460 This e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure. If the reader of this e-mail is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify us by replying to the original message at the listed e-mail address. Thank you. -----Original Message----- From: Laura Kolker <[email protected]> To: ucneighbors <[email protected]> Cc: gregory.montanaro <[email protected]>; lewismellman <[email protected]>; UC Neighbors <[email protected]>; UnivCity listserv <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Jun 15, 2012 10:24 am Subject: Re: [UCNeighbors] "What new Philadelphia tax plan would mean for renters"- from Philly.com Just a quick reply to that first bit that got brought up: On Thursday, June 14, 2012 1:40:36 PM UTC-4, missthin wrote: Why has and is the city not aggressively going after the tax "deadbeats"? If they collected even half of the monies owed, that would, if the 500 million figure is correct (which I don't doubt), that would definitely be a huge I would take that $500 million number with a huge grain of salt. I've been doing business in Philadelphia as a freelance consultant for about 6 years. I have a tax accountant and we are extremely conscientious about paying my taxes monthly and at all the other times. About once a year we have a problem of one sort or another with Philadelphia because I'm sorry to say, they're just not very good at tax collecting. I don't know what's going on over there. I've had situations where I got bills for taxes that I had paid, and they just hadn't gotten around to filing the forms a year later. I've had situations where I've got one department sending me complaints that I'm filing at the wrong frequency, and another department sending me forms for that frequency. I've had situations where the tax rate changed in the middle of the year, but no notification of such. I've had situations where I've been sent bills for bank fees that are completely mysterious and I can only guess at what triggered them (and they don't know either why they sent it to me). When we refinanced our house last Jan, they tried to tack on a bill for some kind of installation fee that happened in the 80s, even though our house has changed hands at least 3 times since then. I could go on. The sad reality is that Philadelphia just isn't very good at tax collection, and I wouldn't expect that $500mil number people keep floating around to be particularly anchored to reality either. I'm not sure why this is. Understaffed? Or maybe it's related to how they just only went electronic for business tax collection last year? Or maybe it's because none of their departments appear to talk to each other (legal, collections, invoicing, etc). That being said: I entirely agree with the general concern that the AVI implementation is headed for disaster. The whole thing is very alarming. But when you say: they should be more aggressive, I say they're already plenty aggressive, they're just not very effective. Just my two cents. 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