In some county departments, it can be difficult to know if the department is functioning properly.
But the Guildford County Tax Department has one metric that pretty much says it all. Property tax collection rate.
In a recent budget report to the Commission from the Guildford County Budget Office, Deputy Budget Director Rusty Maw said collection rates by the IRS over the past two years have been “amazing”.
For the 2020-2021 fiscal year, Guildford County’s property tax collection rate was 99.46%, according to Tax Office statistics. For the fiscal year 2021-2022, which just ended June 30, the county’s property tax collection rate was 99.34%.
Guildford County Tax Commissioner Jim Rowland said this week that the agency was very happy with the collection rates over the past two years given the pandemic and the financial difficulties many people in the county have faced. Told.
It was really amazing,” Rowland said. “It’s the perfect word given the pandemic and other challenges. It was really crazy.”
“I dismissed that question,” said Rowland when asked why payout rates were so high amid a pandemic that has left so many out of work.
One of the real successes in recovery efforts, he says, is a program that strengthened the threat of foreclosure about seven years ago. Prior to the establishment of that program, in which Guildford County Attorney General Matt Mason played a major role, threats of foreclosure in the county were largely impenetrable because the focus was not on enforcing them. People are now well aware that they can lose their homes if they don’t pay.
Roland also said his department did a great job of working with county property owners to discuss payment plans and other ways to work with people to make sure taxes were paid. I feel
He added that federal aid to people and businesses over the past two years has definitely helped the payback rate a lot.
“When people received relief money, the government seemed to be one of the first paying creditors,” Rowland said.
The tax office’s collection rates are consistently near the top in the state. Roland said in a state report in late September that beginning in 2021 he would be shown the results of his 2022 North Carolina-wide collection efforts. He said he was confident Guildford County would at least be in the top 10% of his 100 counties in the state when it was revealed.