Yesterday I wrote about someone in my neighborhood complaining that their D.C. tax refund check had bounced, just days after the story broke that the D.C. Office of Tax Revenue had two employees that may have embezzled as much as $31 million.
Well, today I go to my mailbox and I find a notice that I had — whoops! — forgotten to pay $520 in taxes I owed the city from last year. Not only that, but since I had failed to pay the $520, I owed an additional $130 for “penalty,” $130 for “Admin Fee” and $34.32 in interest, for a grand total of $814.32.
Except that I didn’t. A quick call to my bank confirmed that the D.C. Treasurer’s office cashed a check from me in the amount of $520 on May 2, two weeks after I filed my tax return. So now I have to clear that up.
But first, how on earth do they get away with demanding an additional 56 percent of the amount initially owed? That’s flat out usury — don’t tell me that city officials care about poverty when the city tax collections are more predatory than most credit card companies. And second, I received the notice that I was allegedly delinquent from a third party collections agency on behalf of the city. Which is fine I suppose, except for the fact that when I called MuniServices, LLC to clear things up and they asked me to provide my “reference number” on the notice they sent me it turned out to be my Social Security number. Just how much of my personal information is D.C. turning over to private third parties? Is that even legal?