Beaufort County Treasurer addresses partial payments, long line
I appreciate a recent letter to the editor and the opportunity to provide an explanation to the taxpayers with returned payments.
South Carolina statute 12-45-430 prohibits the Treasurer’s Office from accepting partial payments. Unfortunately, this would be any payment that’s less than what’s due. We could deposit an insufficient payment, as suggested by the letter writer, but we wouldn’t be able to apply it to the taxes owed until all funds were received.
When processing 375,000 tax bills per year, thousands of payments are either missing information needed to process them or are insufficient payments. At that volume, we are unable to pursue a resolution of each of these payments individually.
Additionally, the issuance of a receipt is an internal control and we take internal controls very seriously. A payment should never be deposited without providing an official receipt acknowledging it took place.
In regard to the wait times while visiting our office, I take complete responsibility. We work hard to provide a professional, high-quality customer experience, which requires a team of qualified employees. We were not successful in identifying and hiring enough qualified employees to meet the demand of this tax season prior to it starting.
While wait times before a deadline may not be eliminated completely, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the longer than usual wait as we train and prepare our new team members to serve you.
To learn more about property taxes and alternate payment options, please visit www.BeaufortCountyTreasurer.com.
Maria Walls
Beaufort County Treasurer
Beaufort
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This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Beaufort County Treasurer addresses partial payments, long line."