County Blames Computer Glitch for Tax Bill Snafu

With the deadline to pay property taxes rapidly approaching, as many as 8,000 Los Angeles County homeowners--most of them condominium dwellers or buyers in new housing tracts--are still without their property tax bills and may not receive them for months.

The county assessor’s office blames a faulty computer program for the foul-up, which will not cost individual taxpayers any money but will result in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments to the county.

Officials from the assessor and the treasurer-tax collector’s offices have been assuring anxious taxpayers and soothing angry callers that they will not be bound by the Dec. 12 due date--which already has been extended by two days because the normal Dec. 10 deadline fell on a Saturday.

Roy Sharman, executive coordinator for the assessor’s office, said that penalties for late tax payment will be waived in the cases of property owners who have not been billed.

“They don’t have a tax bill, and you can’t pay what you don’t have,” he said. “They will receive a bill by February or March, but they won’t be penalized (for the delay).”

The reason for the snafu, Sharman said, was a software program in the assessor’s “Optimum” computer system that failed to record changes in the ownership of land parcels properly. As a result, Sharman said, between 7,000 and 8,000 property owners were never mailed current property tax bills although their transactions were completed before the March 1 recording deadline.

Although officials have identified those taxpayers who have been victimized by the computer error, no effort was made to notify them.

Sharman estimated that the unbilled properties could generate about $5.6 million in property taxes--with half that amount due Dec. 12. He also estimated that the county could have expected to receive about $150,000 or $160,000 in interest from those payments.