Late City Tax Bills Threaten Tax Break For Many
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Don't blame the mailman.
Pittsburgh's property tax bills are late this year.
"I was waiting and waiting for my tax bill, and I just received it yesterday," Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Tuesday.
Rudiak is hardly alone.
"I started getting calls yesterday that residents were getting their tax bills on Jan. 31 or Feb. 2 with a Feb. 10 deadline for your early return," noted Councilman Dan Gilman.
Feb. 10 is the deadline for paying property taxes to get a two percent discount off your tax bill, and Gilman says that's too soon.
"If you were out of town, on vacation, or your mail happened to be late a few days, you need to transfer funds from a retirement account to a checking account, any of those things could take some time," said Gilman. "And having six, seven, eight days to get that discount is just not fair to our residents."
So with the mayor's support, Gilman has a bill to extend the tax deadline.
If the legislation is approved, city taxpayers will have until Feb. 28 to pay their full property taxes to get that two percent discount.
If taxpayers prefer to pay in installments, one-third is due at the end of February, another third in June, and the final third in August, but only taxes paid in February get the two percent discount.
So why were the bills late this year?
Blame the Pittsburgh school district.
"Waiting for the school district to finish with the property assessment rolls which they got a little late themselves put us back about two weeks," said Paul Leger, Pittsburgh's finance director.
Leger says scrapping the original bills cost the city.
"My guess is around a hundred thousand dollars that we spent," he said.
Leger says the due date has changed year to year.
Leger: "It could be different next year. Come back."
Delano: "That's not right."
Leger: "It'll be right if the difference next year is the permanent setting."
Leger hopes the city will pick a date certain and stick with it.
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