Third-Quarter Town Taxes Due Today

April 15 is the date most of us think of as Tax Day, but for East Greenwich property owners, March 15 is also Tax Day. In fact, property owners here get to celebrate local tax day four times a year, starting with Sept. 15 and continuing on to Dec. 15, March 15 (today!), and June 15.

The EG fiscal year begins July 1, so this marks the halfway point in the municipal year. That matters, at least for those people who haven’t yet paid their tax bills for the first two quarters. That’s because those properties will be added to the tax sale list after today. If those taxes are not paid in full by June 5 — date of the town's annual tax sale — someone could pay the taxes and have a claim on that property after a year’s time, if the owner doesn’t redeem it.

“For you to redeem the property and get it back, you have to pay 10 percent of what the taxes were for the first six months, plus one percent after that,” explained Town Manager Bill Sequino. That means that the person who buys at the tax sale gets a 10 percent return on that investment. “Tell me that’s not a good investment,” Sequino said.

“You still own your property for one year. After one year, the person who purchased it at the tax sale could take you to court,” said Kathy Raposa, the town’s finance director. “You have to go to Superior Court. You get notified. They’d try to foreclose and clear the title.”

There were about 18 properties sold at last year's tax sale. That's higher than normal — a typical year sees between 6 and 12 properties. Raposa said the reason for the jump last year was because sewer assessments were added to the collection list for the first time. If your sewer assessment was $20,000 over 20 years, plus interest, and you got a few years behind, you could have owed thousands of dollars last year.

This year, Raposa said, the sewer assessments are caught up, so there won't be so many large delinquent bills.

Raposa estimates there could be as many as 200 names on the tax sale list after today. If those property owners settle their bill before April 7, there will be no additional costs incurred. After that, however, the town must do title work to determine all of the people who have an interest in the property. That costs the town money. This year, Raposa said, the property owner will get a bill of $150 for the title work.

If the taxes remain unpaid by early May, the property owner's name will end up in a newspaper ad. For most people, Sequino said, that's incentive enough to get them to pay up.

Can a person negotiate with the town, to try to set up some sort of payment plan?

"No, because we have to treat everybody the same," Raposa said. "Once we do it for one person, we’d have to do it for everybody."