Sunday, November 24, 2019

When Government Experience and Political Promises Don't Line Up

I received the "Personal Property Consolidated Tax Bill" from Montgomery County, Maryland yesterday.

Apparently, I owe a few dollars.

Here's where things get interesting.


  • It came in the mail
  • It's paper
  • There's a return envelope in and I need to send in a check.
  • There is no website to go to and make the payment
  • The envelope is being sent to a PO Box in Philadelphia

Now, if you go to the County Executive's (Marc Elrich) website, you see statements such as:

"A Growing Economy" and "A More Affordable and Welcoming County."

I guess my question for our County Executive would be:

If you really want a better economy, why are you so comfortable with 
  • wasting the taxpayer dollars on the back-end processing associated with check deposits?
  • wasting the time of the taxpayer who needs to write a check, put on a stamp, and mail it
  • sending the payments out of state? If you are going to do that, may as well offshore it to make it cheaper
It's 2019. The idea that I can't pay this tax on a website is just downright offensive.

Plus, I'd love to understand how these paper-based, ineffective, costly processes contribute to a growing, more affordable county?

(Updated: Thanks to Ari for pointing out that it is possible to pay online. I admit, I didn't check. I still maintain that the URL should be on the paper bill and that, in reality, there shouldn't be a paper bill in the first place.)

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