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County treasurer to taxpayers: please don’t overpay

2 min read
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Washington County Treasurer Tom Flickinger has found it necessary to again remind taxpayers that penalties have been waived on 2020 county property taxes.

“We continue to receive payments with penalty and now must remit the difference back to the taxpayer,” Flickinger said, which makes more work for the treasurer’s office.

A vote by the county commissioners in May means that current taxes should be paid at face value through Dec. 31 of this year because of the upheaval created by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania Act 15, signed into law by the governor, formally gave taxing bodies the power to waive any fees or penalties on property taxes due to COVID-19.

County tax bills were mailed in January before the virus became a worldwide problem, so the forms contained information about paying a 10% penalty beginning July 1. Those payment instructions for this calendar year should be disregarded.

The penalty waiver does not apply to prior years, so real estate taxes due from 2019 and before will continue to have penalties and fees applied.

Flickinger also noted the Washington County online tax payment portal is again up and running.

“We successfully upgraded our systems and we are back in operation,” said Flickinger, who thanked those who may have been inconvenienced during the downtime for being patient.

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