Local communities who are members of the Regional Income Tax Agency
Montgomery County
- Riverside residents can get the RITA tax forms at the city's web site, print them off, fill them out and then mail them to RITA's Brecksville, Oh headquarters.
Greene County
- Cedarville
- Yellow Springs
Miami County
- Pleasant Hill
Clark County
- Catawba
- South Charleston residents can visit the village office at 35 S. Chillicothe St. from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for tax assistance. Office is closed noon to 1 p.m. during the week.
- Tremont City
Champaign County
- Mechanicsburg
- North Lewisburg
- Saint Paris
- Woodstock
Warren County
- Maineville
- Waynesville
Butler County
- Oxford residents can get their tax forms on the city's web site. Click on Income Tax information. Forms can then be mailed to the city's government building.
Preble County
- Camden
- Gratis
- West Elkton
Several local municipalities are extending their tax filing deadline to Monday after the tax collecting firm they hired became overwhelmed with last minute tax filers, making it impossible for some taxpayers to meet the April 15 deadline.
A notice posted Wednesday on the Regional Income Tax Agency web site said the agency “handled an unprecedented demand for its filing services both through this web site and personally via its telephone and walk-in service…”
There are at least 19 municipalities listed online as using RITA services in the Montgomery, Clark, Champaign, Greene, Miami, Warren, Butler and Preble counties.
RITA, which is headquartered in Brecksville, Ohio, issued another notice to the media Wednesday saying the agency had increased its Internet bandwidth and phone coverage which has improved access for taxpayers. This notice went on to say that approximately 10,000 tax forms had been filed electronically, over 200 phone calls answered each hour and over 100 taxpayers have been served at RITA’s office locations since midnight Tuesday, according to Amy Arrighi, RITA’s chief legal counsel.
The notice also said RITA would not penalize taxpayers who were unable to connect to the agency by the April 15 deadline as long as their returns are postmarked or electronically transmitted by Monday, April 21.
In addition to the the form being available on RITA’s website, the service is making it available on the municipal websites and in the municipal offices.
The extension will not impact the operations of the local municipalities the newspaper spoke to on Wednesday.
Thomas Garrett, director of finance for the city of Riverside in Montgomery County, said the city received a lot of calls from its residents trying to access RITA’s web site.
“It’s a fairness thing. Not penalizing people. Basically, giving them almost a week before they would incur penalty,” Garrett said of the extension. “The people still have to file and pay their appropriate taxes. It’s just that they’re not going to get hit with a late fee.”
Riverside paid RITA $95,894 for the 2012 tax season, according to Garrett.
“We were getting phone calls that (residents) were having trouble with the web site and I got a few yesterday that the phone lines were tied up. I got notification from RITA that the phone lines were all working, but people were going to have to wait,” said Cheryl Spears, fiscal officer for the Village of South Charleston in Clark County. “I think it was just procrastination.”
Spears went on to say that she was pleased with the extension and believes RITA has done a great job with their tax services in the past. “We can hire them to collect our taxes cheaper than we can have a person in here doing the tax collections.”
In the past, South Charleston has paid up to $12,000 a year to utilize RITA’s services, according to Spears.
Joseph Newlin, finance director for the city of Oxford in Butler County, said he thought RITA responded well by extending their filing deadline.
“It will help the residents who decided to file late, to be able to file and not have penalty interest added to their returns,” Newlin said. “Stuff like this happens during this time of the year when people wait until the last minute. It just clogs the whole system up. So, I’m glad that they responded the way that they did.”
Oxford paid $107,509 to RITA during the 2012 tax collection season after receiving a rebate, according to Newlin.
Earlier this year, according to the Associated Press, the agency announced it would no longer routinely mail paper forms and recommended that taxpayers file online, call for forms or download forms from its website.
About the Author