It is not the only one but today become one I was hit with. Talking about County/City taxing ability. In real life or my life I am responsible for my mistakes and generally have to pay for them. In the role of government, they are not responsible for their mistakes and never pay for them. Well they may pay but it will be with your money that they took from you to pay for a mistake they may have made.
My case: When we built and moved in to this house we filed for the standard “homestead” exemption allowed. It is not much but every little bit helps. I received that exemption in 2009 and went in to make sure it was ok for 2010. They said “once you have filed and it is applied you do not need to file again”. OK! sounds good to me. Unfortunately from that point on I neglected to actually check my yearly tax statement. I noted it went up some, never down, and just lived with it… This year I got the notice and looked at it and this time (in very small print near the top) I noted “exemptions = 0”. Hum that can’t be right, but maybe they take it out somewhere else. Being a notice I only get once a year I had not really checked it a completely as today and that bothered me. I went online and checked and yep, in the rules it states:
I took my notice to the tax office and asked and they pulled up my records and sure enough it was on there through 2012 but my mystery it came off in 2013… no notice or record why and I was advised to go to the assessor office and check. Across the hall I asked why it was missing and they could not find any notice or reason why… it just “disappeared”…
After much discussion in their office I was told that they would have it before the meeting in December and that it would be put back on and I should get the credit for this year. “What about the years it was missing since it was not my error?” Sorry we can’t do that? ok… not my error, admitted it was their error but they are not responsible for previous errors… I guess they need to put that on all their documents, like people that are “not responsible for any errors not my own and any that are not found until too late – 30 minutes or 30 feet being the limit to that”.
I guess I just donated an extra $200 to the local tax fund because I didn’t fully check my statement every year for “THEIR” errors…
WD0AJG