This Photo Saved Me $22

 There was one time in my life (that I can remember) that I was late paying my property tax.  I just completely forgot.  I paid a day late.  Fun Facts: it was even toward the end of that day before I realized I hadn't paid.  I raced down to the Clerk's Office.  I was pretty pissed about it but the clerk said I should at least be glad that it was the last quarter; the penalty is a percentage of the unpaid balance.  Still a dumb mistake on my part and not a lesson I needed to learn twice.

Last week a got a letter from the Clerk's Office saying I had been assessed a penalty for being late on my Q1 tax payment.  The letter said it was received two days late.  That, plain and simple, wasn't true.  I paid on time, first thing in the morning.  The confusion came from the fact that I used the drop box so I didn't get a receipt.  I always use the drop box.  I've never had a problem with it.

I called the Clerk's Office and tried to find what the mix-up was.  I got some pretty vague info, but they were quite confident they couldn't have made a mistake.  I was 1000% sure they did, but, in case you don't know, here's how you handle any fines levied by a government: Pay it first.  Argue later.  The appeal will take a long time and interest will continue to accrue while they sort it out.  When you lose, you'll pay a lot more.  So stop the bleeding, then begin the fight.

 The City's position was that they were so confident that they check the drop box so thoroughly each day there was no way it could have been missed or lost.  "I stick my hand all the way up there" is what a clerk told me about how the box is checked.  Easy to tee off on that quote but I just pointed out that's a blind check.  

I was invited to file an appeal.  Believe it or not, you use the Property Tax Abatement form for that.  This is the same form people use to dispute their appraisal or to request a general reduction in tax based on general hardship, so when you submit this form, you need to show a copy of your tax bill, your entire payment history, a copy of the assessor's card, and some other stuff that... you... get from the City so you can print it out to... give... to... the...

City?

  Only took about 4 dozen trees to feed that bureaucratic ouroboros and my paperwork was in order.  For proof, I had a few things that at least showed I wasn't remembering things wrong.  I had a screenshot of a text with someone at 8:05AM saying I was heading downtown to pay taxes and asking if they wanted me to take theirs too.  I had a screenshot of another text at 8:38AM saying how easy parking was.  I had a record of a bank transfer at 8:51AM providing the funds to cover the check I just wrote.  And as fate would have it, I had this photo...

 

For whatever reason, I decided to snap this photo of a new art installation that was recently placed in front of City Hall.  I took the photo because it had snowed that morning and, on a gray and white day, this piece of art was trying to sell people on the idea that the skies here are rosy and we have lots of flowers. That's cool.  By the way it's literally 6ºF outside as I write this but the point is, the time stamp on this photo is 8:36AM on Tax Day, and this spot is about half a block from the drop box.  The photo allowed me to pinpoint, almost to the exact minute, when I paid my taxes.  I told them that (yeah - no one is going to take it this far, but) I'm sure there's security camera footage of City Hall from that day and I can tell you within a two minute time window where to look to find me dropping off my payment.

I like to think that, for a guy who didn't get a receipt, I had a pretty damn good idea of exactly when I paid my taxes.  I included all this in my Abatement package, loaded it all on a flatbed and dropped it at City Hall on a Thursday.

On Monday of the next week I got a call saying the fee was being refunded.  I was told specifically that the piece of evidence that impressed most was the photo. 

I can't quite believe this was overturned but I'll take the victory.  They still don't quite know what happened down there but the best guess is that the electric department who uses the same drop box must have absconded with my envelope (which by the way said TAXES on the front) and they sat on it for a couple days before returning it to City Hall.  Woulda been nice if someone there thought to tell them about their mistake instead of just silently putting it back two days past the due date, but I guess we can't have nice things.

Anyway, the whole problem is sorted out just as simple as that and now it's just an easy 4-6 week wait to get my money back!