Southbury Board of Finance Stands by Use of Lockbox for Tax Payments

Board of Finance Chairman John A. Michaels defended the use of a lockbox account to collect tax payments despite problems with the town’s Wells Fargo account, the Republican-American reports.

The account with Wells Fargo, opened earlier this year, allowed taxpayers to send their checks to a post office in New Jersey so the money could directly be deposited into town accounts.

According to the publication, the tax office could not remain current on who had paid their taxes on time due to delays by Wells Fargo in file processing. Other problems included incompatible file formats and destruction of envelopes by the bank that had postmarks on them. Another processing problem was that the bank did not allocate one payment to multiple coupons, resulting in overpaying of certain taxes and non-payment of others.

First Selectman Ed Edelson told the paper there had been no problems with online tax payments. The Tax Collector’s Office is still manually correcting problems created by the bank.

Michaels told the paper the board felt they should open an account with a bank that is more experienced with handling lockbox payments.

Read the full story at the Republican-American.

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