To the editor:

I am writing to share my experience in resisting an interest charge assessed by the Town against my property tax account. I believe my experience may be useful to others.

Second quarter taxes were due on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023. I went to Town Hall at about 1 p.m. that day and found that the door to the Tax Collector’s office was locked. So I put my check through the mail slot. I paid the installment in full.

A week later, the Collector wrote me stating that I owed another $9.27 in interest. A pre-printed sticker affixed to her letter stated: “Tax payments were due by Friday, Dec. 29, 2023. Friday hours 8:30am-Noon. Anything after noon was processed the next business day 01/02/2024.”

In other words, the Town was charging me four days of interest – from 12/29/2023 to 1/2/2024 – because I paid the installment after noon on the Dec. 29 due date.

I do not begrudge our Town employees the ability to leave work at noon on Fridays, especially because they work until 7 p.m. on Mondays. But State law prohibits municipalities from charging interest if tax installments are made “on or before the last date of each installment period” – which in this case ended at midnight on Dec. 29. State law supersedes the Town’s “late if paid after noon on Fridays” policy.

In addition to being unlawful, the Town’s interest policy is unfair. My tax bill says nothing about an internal practice of letting employees leave at noon on Fridays and treating the tax payment deadline as if it falls at that moment. Rather, the bill only warns that interest will be charged on payments “Not Paid By Due Date.” But the due date did not end at noon.

It seemed silly to get worked up over a $9.27 interest charge. But it was clear that the Town’s policy is wrong.  And the fact that the Collector used a pre-printed sticker to justify her actions indicated that many other taxpayers have been hit with these surprise charges. 

I therefore wrote to the Collector and explained why her policy was invalid. She promptly and politely reversed the interest. I assume she will do the same for anyone else who makes the same complaint. 

Some say you can’t fight City Hall. In this case the Town did right by me, but now it needs to renounce its unlawful interest policy and correct the accounts of everyone who was adversely affected by it.

Mark A. Pogue

Barrington