MAPLEWOOD, NJ — At its Sept. 4 meeting, Maplewood Township Committee further discussed the town’s reasons for no longer accepting partial property tax payments, a change in policy that came after South Orange voted in June to allow its tax collector, Aderonke Zaccheus, also to serve as Maplewood’s tax collector. Payments may now only be made for each quarter in lump payments by Feb. 1, May 1, Aug. 1 and Nov. 1.
“People were making payments in between the quarters and what our new tax collector said that her professional opinion was, is that we should not be taking those payments because payments are due on those four quarterly dates and you cannot make partial payments toward those quarterly dates,” DeLuca said at the meeting. “Whether or not we accept partial payments, we can, there’s no prohibition,” he added, explaining that Zaccheus does this to avoid confusion.
According to DeLuca and Maplewood Business Administrator Sonia Alves-Viveiros, the confusion came when people would pay, say, 50 percent of their taxes, then, when late on the other 50 percent, be charged interest in penalties on the full amount owed.
“I think the crux of the problem is, if the full amount is not paid on the due date, Nov. 1, or within whatever the grace period is, which is a 10-day grace period, I believe, statutorily, the person’s going to be charged the full interest and penalty on the full amount, regardless of the partial payment they’ve made or not. So, if they owe $3,000 and they pay $2,000, and they owe $1,000, on the due date they’re going to pay interest in penalties on the $3,000,” township attorney Roger Desiderio said.
“And they come and argue that ‘I’ve already paid $2,000, so therefore, whatever you’re charging me, should only be on the $1,000’ and we say, ‘no, we have to charge you on the $3,000. It gets to be an issue,” DeLuca said. “The state doesn’t allow that partial payment to be in lieu of the full payment that was due on Nov. 1.”
Deputy Mayor Frank McGehee questioned: “So a resident comes in and we reject their payment?”
“We’re not taking that, not unless that’s the full amount,” Alves-Viveiros said.
McGehee asked if the township had been telling partial payers when accepting the partial payment that, interest-wise, they were still on the hook for the entirety of their property taxes, and Desiderio responded that the due date is listed on the tax bill with a notice that, if you are not paid by then, you will be charged interest on the amount.
“I don’t think we’re letting them know,” McGehee said, suggesting that, if the town does go back to accepting partial payments, it should make that clear at the time of payment. “It’s an extra document, but I think we need to over-communicate it until people understand this truth.”
But DeLuca pointed out that, in addition to the confusion accepting partial payments can cause, the practice also forces the department to do more bookkeeping and increases the cost of labor in the department.
Committeeman Dean Dafis expressed concern that partial payment may be the only viable method of payment for some residents.
“I understand the state law, I understand the tax assessor’s position as well, but am I wrong in thinking that the folks who are making partial payments, even within the quarter, are some of our seniors who are waiting on that check to come in and do it when they can?” Dafis asked.
Alves-Viveiros assured Dafis that the tax collector’s office will be proceeding on a case-by-case basis.
“If there’s a situation where we could do the partial payment, we’ll do that,” Alves-Viveiros said. “She’s doing that now in South Orange, she’s not doing anything different than what she’s doing there.”
But Desiderio argued against accepting partial payments at all.
“If you start making exceptions to the rule, the exception can swallow the rule and someone can say, ‘you did it for me last time or you did it for my neighbor,’” Desiderio said.
DeLuca agreed, saying that he believes case-by-case acceptances of partial payments led to the more widespread practice in Maplewood.
“We had a policy and then the policy was ignored and people started to pay, they were allowed to pay, and then more and more people started to pay,” DeLuca said. “The tax collector made a professional judgment now; if we don’t agree with that, we have the right as the governing body to overturn that.”
DeLuca added that he wants to know how many property owners were making partial payments so that he can properly gauge its impact. Alves-Viveiros told the News-Record via email that she did not have that figure.
“This is not like anybody’s in jeopardy; people are just prepaying their taxes. And they can just put the money in the bank and then pay in November,” DeLuca said. “They’re using this as a bank.”
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