A computer glitch in the troubled D.C. property tax office gave free passes to hundreds of city residents for several months, but they are now getting whopping catch-up bills in the mail.
Finance office spokesman David Umansky blamed the goof on the computer consultant paid to handle online property tax payments. He said that at least 300 taxpayers were given double credits for single payments in the spring of 2007.
“They figured out what was wrong with the problem and it’s fixed and it will not happen again,” Umansky said.
Taxpayers are now being asked to cough up an extra payment to make good on the error, Umansky said.
D.C. officials didn’t detect the error. It was brought to their attention by a Capitol Hill homeowner Noah Meyerson, who said he had to fight for months to get the city to take his money.
“I just wanted to be honest,” Meyerson told The Examiner. “I figured it was systematic.”
Umansky downplayed the importance of the flub. He said it represented less than 1 percent of the city’s tax revenues.
But it has beena rough few months for the tax office. Last fall, federal authorities charged two low-level employees with siphoning off tens of millions of public dollars right under the nose of Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi. In February, the office was handed an audit that blasted its $120 million automated tax system as a “failure” that allowed millions of dollars of potential revenue to go uncollected revenue and left the finance office wide open to corruption.
Meyerson, who works on the Hill, said he has to pay about $1,900 twice per year. Last fall, though, a bill didn’t come. He got worried.
“I called the main hot line several times to make sure that I didn’t miss it,” he said. “They said I had a zero balance.”
After a series of letters, e-mails and phone calls, Meyerson finally went to the D.C. Council. He got a new bill last month.
“I’m just glad that they found the problem,” he said. “I hope they’ll institute controls so it doesn’t happen again.”
But Meyerson does worry about his own public relations problem: “I’d rather not be known as ‘the guy who made me pay more property taxes.’ ”
