Keystone Collection Invoice Problems

[Born Free]

We are retired, and only required to pay local "Per Capita" taxes. Every year we get two bills, one for the school district and one for our local borough. This year we both received invoices for the school taxes earlier this year as usual, but only I received an invoice for the local borough. As I wrote we are both retired with no state taxable income. I contacted Keystone several times, each time I get different answers, they claim I owe the tax but my wife does not, but also acknowledge we both paid earlier this year and they have all the documentation required to claim the retired exemption for the occupational tax.. I have been retired longer than my wife and I can not understand why this year is different.

I just received another voicemail and the woman said my wife does not need to pay because we both paid the tax earlier this year. Last week the representative told me I did not need to pay either, but about 10 minutes later another person left a voicemail telling me I must pay and they will check into my wife's missing invoice. The thing that makes it worse is each time a different person is handling the problem, they do not give me a specific extension number so each time I get someone different. . It does not make sense to me that only one of us does not need to pay the per capita tax to the borough this year.

Our concern is we get an additional penalty for not paying for my wife , but we have no way to pay if they do not give us an invoice number.

I do not know who else to contact, if you have any experience with these things, please let me know.

thanks

joe

[3Hotdogs]

1. Document your calls -- time and name of person with whom you talked.

Possibly call your district's state legislator's office. They should have contact information that is not available to the public.

Is the Keystone office to far to drive to?

[Born Free]

2. Thanks for the ideas

Not sure, but I think Keystone Collections Group is too far to visit easily, if they even have a brick and mortar office. After talking with several people I now suspect they use part time phone workers, perhaps out of their private houses and that would explain why so many different phone calls and different answers, most times they just identify as Keystone Collections, do not give any more details. According to their web site "Servicing 900+ School Districts and Municipalities in 38 Pennsylvania Counties" - I think PA has 67 counties total.

Today I talked with one of the people at our local borough office and she said she would try to find out what is going on, but had doubts she could get any more than I did. It is ironic because the first thing everyone says is contact Keystone Collections if you have any tax questions. If the local borough office does not respond in a couple days I can try the State Representative for our area.

[3Hotdogs]

3. I'm sorry. I was looking at this wrongly. Keystone is a collection agency? Your focus needs to be on

municipality or government agency that claims that you owe them money.

The Federal Trade Commission regulates collection companies. You might call or write to them. Also, your state attorney general's office/consumer protection bureau may be able to assist you.

[Born Free]

4. Keystone Collections does it all,

Keystone Collections does it all, collect, administer, decide and enforce. They take care of the records for who pays and who does not pay, saving local governments/schools etc money. Most places in our area have found it cheaper to allow that organization to take care of any and all taxes owed and collected. They bill taxpayers for local taxes, occupational taxes etc. and also take care taxes not paid. I do not think the local municipalities even know who is paying and who is not - all is taken care of by Keystone Collects. You could say it is a voluntary privatization of local government for taxes , local tax collectors do less and less. They send an invoice, before a tax is due, you get discounts if you pay early, pay the full amount or if you miss a certain date, pay a penalty. I am not sure what all happens after that, we always pay early to get the discount.

The problem is if their system makes a mistake as they are doing now with my wife, failing to create the invoice that has both per capita and occupation taxes. They say No invoice means she does not owe anything but we know she did not yet pay this year's per capita taxes for our local borough, we are exempt from the occupational taxes on the invoice because we are both retired, but still required to pay the per capita tax. I was hoping to get it fixed before it becomes a more serious problem.

[3Hotdogs]

5. Do invoices give you a mailing address? If so, file a small claims case for damages done by their

incompetence or neglect. The amount could be loss of credit, interest, stress or whatever. Max it out to the limit ... N.J. is $3000.

Small claims cases are usually handled by mail.

That will get their attention.

Since the local government agreed to privatize, attend a meeting of the local town council. Contact the town business administrator. Letter to local newspaper (if there is one left in business).