From the Muncie Star-Press:
Property owners in Delaware County soon might get their tax bills via their email inboxes rather than their mailboxes.
The county commissioners on Monday approved a proposal from the Indianapolis company that runs the county’s tax sales to begin preparations for electronic tax statements.
It’ll be a while before many of the county’s 60,000-plus tax bills will be emailed, officials acknowledged. But the change could save county government - and thus taxpayers - money on postage and other costs.
The proposal came from Clair Schaler of SRI Incorporated and County Treasurer John Dorer.
Property owners would sign up to receive their tax statements via email, which would replace their paper bill. SRI would send a test email weeks before the property tax statement was emailed to ensure accurate email addresses.
SRI offers the email billing program in nine counties currently and mounts marketing campaigns to let property owners know the electronic bill is available.
Even at that, officials acknowledged, property owners could be slow to sign up.
Schaler said the company would charge the county 40 cents per typical, one-parcel email notice compared to a cost of around 60 cents for each traditionally mailed notice now.
Of the more than 60,000 property tax statements mailed in a typical year, one is mailed for each taxable parcel, which means that some property owners can get multiple statements.
Dorer said the emailed bills could be directed to a business or farm property owner’s accountant, for example. Dorer cited one Gaston-area agriculture producer with 68 separate parcels.
The Indiana Legislature passed a law in 2009 allowing taxpayers to receive their property tax bills through email.
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308220002
