Deadline for property taxes approaches

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By ASHLEY INGE
TheFlashToday.com

ERATH COUNTY (December 6, 2018) – Property taxes came out on Oct. 1 and for some Erath County residents, the deadline to pay property taxes is fast approaching.

For the residents who put their property tax on their income tax filing, the deadline to pay is Dec. 31.

Residents can also use several different methods to pay their property taxes. They can mail in a check, come by the tax assessor’s office or use a payment site. The payment site does charge users if they use a credit card, debit card or eCheck because it’s hosted by a third-party vendor.

On the county’s website, there is a link to the tax assessor collector’s office as well as a link to pay property taxes. Residents can go to www.texaspayments.com and click on Erath. From there, they can access it by their name, address or account number. If a resident decides to pay on that website, it does charge a 3.2 percent unless they decide to use an eCheck, which has a fee of a flat five dollars.

Erath County Tax Assessor-Collector Jennifer Carey said that if an individual decides to mail in their payment, it has to be postmarked with a post office postmark.

“If they don’t get it in here by Dec. 31, it has to be postmarked with a post office postmark; it can’t be a meter stamp, it has to be a post office postmark of Dec. 31 in order for it to be counted as a December payment. We get many checks later on in January but the check is dated but that doesn’t count. It has to be in our hands or a post office postmark has to show that it was actually mailed and postmarked in December of 2018 in order for it to count as a 2018 payment,” Carey said.

For residents who don’t use their property taxes on their income tax filing, they have until Jan. 31 to pay or they will receive a delinquent fee. Delinquency means a seven percent late fee will be added to the bill on Feb. 1.

People that are over the age of 65 or who are disabled in their home can also sign up for Quarter Pay.

“They pay a fourth of their taxes by Jan. 31 and then they have three more payments after that,” Carey said. “They are supposed to be four equal payments but sometimes the last payment is pennies more or pennies less but it’s without any penalties or interest as long as they make the payments during that time so they’ll have four payments: one in January, one in March, one in May and one in July, but they do have to sign up for it. They have to qualify and sign up, so they have to have a homestead and over 65 exemption, because it has to be declared in their home, and they can only do it on their home, so if they have 120 acres and their house is on a different account, they can only do it on the account with their house.”

For more information, visit http://co.erath.tx.us/taxoffice.html or call the tax office at 254-965-8630.


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