Being charged to make a deposit???

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkstick That's not true in all of Texas. In our county (Nueces) we write one check to the county, who then divides it up to the various taxing entities, such as the county, the city you live in, your local school district, the community college and others.

Agreed it depends on where you are. I once sent a message to my state rep suggesting that the state move to the tax assessor collector doing all tax collections for the entire county as it would save money (the county has to send a bill to every property owner in the county, so to add the schools would be relativly trivial, and at a minimum save a set of postage costs, plus the costs of processing the payment). It did take with my local school district, but he did not push it in the leg. It seems a waste to have multiple tax bills.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkstick That's not true in all of Texas. In our county (Nueces) we write one check to the county, who then divides it up to the various taxing entities, such as the county, the city you live in, your local school district, the community college and others.

Same here. We right one check for all and it goes to the county tax assessor-collector.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud It is different here in Texas.... we write a separate check to the school district.. and it is by far the largest check for property taxes...

Interesting, I've never run across that. I've lived in five separate counties in TX and only had to write one check to the County Tax Assessor, who divvied it up to all the local taxing entities.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Interesting, I've never run across that. I've lived in five separate counties in TX and only had to write one check to the County Tax Assessor, who divvied it up to all the local taxing entities.

I remember in Austin writing a separate check to the ISD, but all other counties I lived in it was just one check to the County Tax Assessor.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Interesting, I've never run across that. I've lived in five separate counties in TX and only had to write one check to the County Tax Assessor, who divvied it up to all the local taxing entities.

Harris County, TX:

Check #1 - County property tax
Check #2 - ISD (school district)
Check #3 - M.U.D. (Municipal Water District)

[audreyh1]

The MUD isn't taxes is it? - thats a utility. It was in my Austin suburb at least.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 The MUD isn't taxes is it? - thats a utility. It was in my Austin suburb at least.

The MUD statement indicates it's a tax paid annually and it is a water/sewage utility.

http://activerain.trulia.com/blogsvi...harris-county-

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 The MUD statement indicates it's a tax paid annually and it is a water/sewage utility. What's MUD taxes in Houston Texas, Harris county?

Interesting.

Of course we pay taxes on all our utilities too. They are just charged monthly.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 The MUD statement indicates it's a tax paid annually and it is a water/sewage utility. What's MUD taxes in Houston Texas, Harris county?

To boot the MUD tax is deductable as a property tax used to pay off the bonds for building the water sewer infrastructure. When the subdivision eventually gets annexed the mud tax turns into the city property tax, and the city takes over the bonds.

[audreyh1]

Interesting. I think I didn't know to add that when itemizing deductions. But I also don't remember a separate annual bill.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkstick That's not true in all of Texas. In our county (Nueces) we write one check to the county, who then divides it up to the various taxing entities, such as the county, the city you live in, your local school district, the community college and others.

OK... good to know... I have to write 3 checks... the county that distributes to a LOT of taxing authorities, the school and our water district...

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Interesting. I think I didn't know to add that when itemizing deductions. But I also don't remember a separate annual bill.

At least that is how the mortgage company did things when they sent me the annual statement way back when. (The taxes and insurance were done by escrow). By the time I paid it off it was in the city and the MUD tax was replaced by the city tax.

The tax qualified as a property tax because it was based on a rate times the assessed value of the home.

[Koolau]

Back to the OP for a second. I've relayed in this forum at one time or another about a bank which began charging my business $3 for opening the night-deposit bag. I had been with this bank perhaps 25 years. I complained and the folks at the branch shrugged. I closed the account (IIRC it was in the 30K to 40K neighborhood - all checking). I moved to a competing local bank. 6 months later I got a call from a bank executive asking why we closed the account. So I told her what had happened. I think she knew it was too late, so she simply apologized and that was that. YMMV

[Totoro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gauss I have heard that for a check to be legal, it only needs to contain the required information, but it does not necessarily need to be what we are use to seeing. All fields could be handwritten for instance including the routing and account number. I have not tested this personally however.

In Europe (sorry, I live here) this is correct. It's one of these gimmicks they teach you in economics 101 at university.

Could imagine it's the same in USA.

Also: since it's funny Thursday:

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud It is different here in Texas.... we write a separate check to the school district.. and it is by far the largest check for property taxes...

That's how we paid when we lived in NY. We paid more in the school district portion 12 years ago in NY than our total property tax bill in Fl last year.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud You must not have been in a modern one... the one I was at, the checks kept flying through the machine... if there was a problem that check was just sorted in a different pile... someone would look at the scanned image and make the necessary entries and then it was whisked away.... it usually took 3 to 5 seconds of a human to fix it... unless it was something wrong with the check coding....

Back in the 80's I worked for an outfit that made the check sorting machines. Some our big customers had a plan to load one our huge machines into a cargo jet and keep feeding it during a nuclear war! Now, though, I'm pretty sure the machines only scan, but they don't actually sort, bundle and physically move the paper any more.