El Dorado County Tax Mix-Up Could Hit Business Owners
EL DORADO COUNTY (CBS13) — A mix-up in the mail is leading to an alert by the tax man tonight.
In El Dorado County, some people's tax statements are ending up in the wrong place, thanks to what El Dorado County Assessor Karl Weiland is calling a glitch.
Weiland showed CBS13 the envelopes causing the problem.
"So this is the envelope that should have been mailed out," Weiland said. "Its addressed to the El Dorado County assessor here in Placerville."
"This is the envelope that was inadvertently included. It is addressed to John Tudor of the Napa County assessor in Napa."
Two return envelopes. Both mailed out. Only one is correct.
Now Napa County's assessor may get hundreds of tax forms meant for El Dorado County's assessor.
"We're going to get a lot of phone calls," Weiland said.
Weiland has been doing this job for a long time.
"Twenty-seven years," Weiland said.
This is a first.
"It is, it's inconvenient," Weiland said. "The downside is that if a business property statement gets lost, we don't get it by May 7, there's a mandatory 10 percent penalty for not filing on time."
Up to 500 wrong return envelopes, addressed to the Napa assessor, were sent out to El Dorado County businesses. Weiland says the mail mix-up was by a vendor that somehow used a partially full box of Napa county envelopes when they sent out El Dorado County tax forms.
"It may have been put on the El Dorado County shelf instead of back on the Napa County shelf," Weiland said. "We don't know those details."
El Dorado County business owners caught in the confusion, beware. If you file on time, make sure you aren't fined because your tax documents took a Napa detour.