The town of Greenburgh and other large municipalities in the state have an overpayment and duplicate payment account. At times overpayments of taxes occur. The town is posting a 256 page long listing of people who may be owed money on our website from 1996 to the present: www.greenburghny.com. As you will note from the message below from the Receiver of Taxes documentation is required before a refund check will be issued. It is possible that the name on the account will not be entitled to the refund.
PAUL FEINER
This account will be updated on a regular basis and will remain on the town website.
TOWN OF GREENBURGH OVERPAYMENT AND DUPLICATE PAYMENT
ACCOUNT
HOW DO OVERPAYMENTS HAPPEN?
There are several ways in which an overpayment can occur, ranging from the simple
inversion of a number to a bank paying on a wrong account. For example, the bank
believes it is paying on property located at 12 Main Street in Hastings when in fact it is
paying on 12 Main Street in Tarrytown. Often at a closing or a refinance, both the title
company and the bank pay the same tax. Also, if you sell your property the new deed is
not placed on our records for several months and the new homeowner may be the party
entitled to the refund. Even though the seller’s name still appears on the account, they
may not be the party entitled to the refund.
If you believe you are entitled to the refund, then I will need the following documentation
to satisfy our auditors and meet the requirements of the law.
IF YOU PAID YOUR TAXES DIRECTLY TO US AT THE TIME OF THE
PAYMENT IN QUESTION
If a duplicate payment was made, please submit a copy of either of the cancelled checks.
If a simple overpayment was made, please submit a copy of that particular check. Please
be sure to indicate in your request, that you are the person entitled to the refund.
IF YOUR BANK PAID YOUR TAXES AT THE TIME OF THE PAYMENT IN
QUESTION
Please ask your bank to submit to my office a copy of the cancelled check, or provide
documentation that they paid the tax either in error, or more than once on your account.
They should also specify whether the funds are to be returned to your escrow account, or
mailed to you directly.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact my office at 914-993-1512.
Respectfully,
David C. Dwinell
Receiver of Taxes
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16 comments:
The IRS may owe you money!
Release Date: December 15, 2003
Senator Schumer has advised me that the IRS is looking to return money to over 12,000 NY residents. The average refund is $705. Some refunds are as high as $25,000. The checks are either unclaimed income tax refunds or advance child tax credit checks, most of which were not claimed because the taxpayer did not file a specific change of address form (FORM 8822) with the IRS. To make it easier the entire list of unclaimed/undeliverable tax refunds is posted on the web site: www.schumer.senate.gov. Taxpayers who are owed money may claim it by calling the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. I checked the list. Some Greenburgh names are on the list!
PAUL FEINER
Which is why other elected officials just love Feiner.
Preach yes; practice no.
Obfuscate, coverup and confuse. Never give a sucker an even break. If you don't like it, file an Article 78. Apres moi, le deluge!
Paul,
You had no problem posting the Schumer notice way back in 2003, why didn't you do the same for Greenburgh taxpayers????
Yes, other municipalities, both large and small have this overpayment account. But say in the case of the Village of Ardsley, the Village works diligently to return the funds.
As the Town's auditors have consistently pointed out, however, the balance should be zero. At the end of 2006, this account was reported in the 2006 management letter to be $ 1.9 million. So in just three years, before people just recently started to demand their money, the account increased to slightly more than $ 2.8 million. Does anyone else see a long term problem? Why didn't the Supervisor as the Town's Chief Financial Officer insist on cleaning this up? Just another weakness in internal controls. Just another attempt at a "revenue" grab to hide the sad, but true declining financial health of the Town.
I guess he'd rather keep posting job leads than address real problems that impact many and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. Priorities, priorities, priorities.
Hey, Hal. My star must be on the rise. I now have a garbage can (delete) after my most recent post just above.
The tentative Town budget called for the use of approximately $ 1.7 million in Town Entire fund balance. Prediction: The adopted 2010 Town Entire budget will use considerably more than this.
Paul,
The following question was asked at the Library meeting on the budget several weeks ago, "Where did this unclaimed funds account come from?"
Francis Sheehan answered that it came from uncashed checks from vendors.
Paul, Sheehan's statement is obviously incorrect. The question is: Was this an actual attempt to mislead the public or was it a mistake from someone who has been on the Board for four years and should definitely know better?
Sheehan's misstatement needs to be addressed. He should be forced to apologize for conveying false information to the taxpayers.
The trash can that appears on bloggers screens exists for the bloggers to delete their own posts. This is a very bad feature. I wonder how many posts have been deleted by bloggers clicking on the trash can just to see what happens.
The Town claims they have tried to contact residents who have overpaid their taxes. Bologna! I looked through the list - so many of them still reside in the Town. Do you believe for a minute that anyone would ignore a letter from the town indicating that money is owed them? Why not just post a credit to the tax account? Written notices should be mailed certified return receipt. Paul Feiner & Co. are stealing our money in order to balance their budget. Shame on all of them!
I have to hand it to Paul. Not one article has appeared in the Journal News concerning this issue. Control of the media is the first step toward a dictatorship.
If the story doesn't appear in the next few days, let Curtis Riddle know. He's Group President, East Newspaper Group (community newspapers) for Gannett (Journal News parent).
In Delaware, 320/324-2900.
sorry, 302-324-2900
The Town talks about a budget crunch yet there are many Westchester municipalities passing budgets with less than a 5% increase.
The reason is simple, they are governed by people who understand finance.
The Town is crying about no money yet they paid $65,000 last year for a useless drainage study. The study was wrong but they accepted it and paid for it nonetheless. Now they are paying $500,000 for a Comprehensive Plan which they started two years ago and are not even close to completing. Some on the Town Board claim they can't afford to finish it and others say that it will be finished by the end of 2010. These types of studies should be completed in 12 months or less otherwise they are obsolete. The TB is also making spot zoning changes for certain developers - why have a master plan if you're going to zone property on a first-come first-serve basis?
They didn't sell the $2.5 million worth of property that Madden & McCarthey claimed would sell in a heartbeat.
They are using over $800,000 of tax overpayments as revenue. Not illegal although ethically questionable - shouldn't they return this money to it's rightful owners?
The problem is they don't know what they are doing. All they care about is getting re-elected so they can collect their pay checks, pensions and health insurance.
I was listening to a work session being live-streamed and Sheehan actually passed a vote to Morgan while stating "you make the decision, you're the next one up for re-election." Are these the kind of people we want running our Town?
Exploding the myths...continued.
"The Town's ratables will increase due to the recent vote of confidence by Regeneron and OSI Pharma."
These fine companies moved to Greenburgh because there were vacant buildings to serve their space requirements. But why were there buildings in the first place?
Because somebody built them (called developers). But why did developers build them?
Because Greenburgh is well located, an overlooked fact which Feiner never reminds constituents about. Tappan Zee Bridge (winner or relic), 287 (Cross Westchester Xpwy) NYS Thruway, Saw Mill, Sprain, Bronx River parkways, Metro North Harlem and Hudson lines, Westchester County Airport...
Companies like REGN and OSIP require and demand transportation for their employees and visitors and the convenience to the nearby concrete arterial highway network and train transport is the key element for any large, global company when choosing where to locate facilities. And being midway between NYC and Stamford is not something to ignore either.
Yet Feiner never recognizes the happenstance that has positioned Greenburgh in the epicenter of these logistical advantages. Just like he doesn't appreciate the County for its part in making Greenburgh the "hub".
How Feiner gives thanks to his providers is to crusade to eliminate County government.
Another recent myth is taken from the Supervisor's foray into defending his policies to the Ardsley yahoo group. Here Feiner makes reference to the existence of overpayments as always being shown as part of the annual Town Budget. Thus, the current uproar should not have taken anyone by surprise. Well, I and others have searched in vain for this budget line. So the challenge of the day to the Supervisor is: where is reference to overpayments made in any of the last six years of Town Budgets? What year? what page? what line?
Talk is cheap although taxes are not and paying them twice is even more obnoxious. But making up false assurances and backing them with false statements is not, by any measure, an example of an honest, transparent government.
Even one that hides in a closed, door, mislabeled Executive Session.
This is taken from Paul’s budget message that he posted in October:
“Alan Hochberg is the chair of the citizen’s commission addressing fire consolidation issues. He has also volunteered his time, helping to shape this budget.”
It should be noted that Mr. Hochberg is both an attorney and an accountant. Given this, what areas of the budget did he help shape Paul? Was it condoning using hyper-inflated values for the properties that were to be auctioned? Or was it the use of over $800,000 in what you term unclaimed funds (unclaimed only because the Town did not make a proper effort to notify the interested parties)?
The auction was a complete failure, grossing far less that $500,000 The Town anticipated and budgeted for revenue of $2.5 million. The use of the “unclaimed funds” is the most despicable act of Paul’s entire term in office.
So Paul, what did Alan Hochberg know about these budget items and when did he know it?
Whymec, where did you verify that Mr. hochberg is both an attorney and an "accountant"? I just checked the New York State Bar association web site and he doesn't come up and I checked the New York State licenses for CPA's and he doesn't come up, so what is your source? I'm just curious.
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