Published: August 21, 2008 11:35 pm         

County tax bills in mail

TERRE HAUTE — While some glitches delayed printing tax bills in Vigo County, the bills were delivered for mailing on Monday, with many property taxpayers receiving them Thursday or today.

The bills were processed and mailing began on Tuesday, said county Treasurer Dave Crockett.

That is within the state required 15-calendar-day notice from the mailing date to taxpayers, he said.

Some unforeseen problems delayed the initial mailings, including an equipment breakdown during printing, Crockett said.

The county has a contract with Miami Systems, which printed the bills in South Bend. That company, along with Vigo County’s contract, was bought out by Work Flow One, which prints the tax bills in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“We ran into some snags this year, more than what I had anticipated and more than I wanted,” Crockett said. “A [printing] machine broke down and that added to the headache.

“In all honesty, we were doing our best to give an extended time period for taxpayers, but you can only control what you can control. We complied with everything the printer needed and then it is up to them to get things done. We can’t help when there is a breakdown of equipment,” he said.

Other problems included the addition of two characters to the magnetic ink character recognition, or MICR, line. This line contains a code assigned to the bank where a checking account is located and a check account number.

The number is used when a Vigo County property tax bill is paid by mail, which goes to a central processing site for Old National Bank. That allows the county to collect interest a few days sooner on bills paid.

“Old National had to adjust their system to be able to read that line to scan the tax statements,” Crockett said.

A new county computer tax bill system also created “zero bill” statements for taxes. Crockett said state law requires statements be mailed to property taxpayers, even if the bill is zero. However, it does not require that of personal property bills, the treasurer said.

“The system did not separate personal or real property. That delayed a few days, but that was not foreseen by anybody. Personal property, like a camper, can be sold. However, it is still listed as a parcel in the tax system, but it has no value. I didn’t see the value to send out zero bills to people who don’t own something anymore,” Crockett said.

Property tax bills are due Sept. 5, with a second installment due Nov. 10. Tax bills can be viewed online at www.vigocounty.org.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com