Property taxes due!
Hey homeowners — did you remember to pay your property taxes? Today’s the deadline — actually yesterday was, but it was a Sunday, so you get today too.
Did you know you can pay online with a credit card? That link goes to the San Francisco Office of the Tresurer and Tax Collector; other counties have their own sites.
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A convenience fee of $300? What the FUCK?
Hey, if I owned a house that was taxed that high, I’d be so rich that it would be worth $300 for me not to stand in line today — assuming I was also dumb enough to have forgotten to pay my taxes until the last day.
But my payment was only in the $1500 range so the convenience fee was only $34. Works for me.
The convenience fee is to offset the cost of paying the transaction charge to the credit card company.
That said, if you look at the fee schedule, the people whose payments are at the top of a particular bracket pay ~1.4% and the people whose payments are at the bottom pay ~2.6%. The credit card vig is probably closer to the 1.4 than the 2.6. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s right straight through the middle.
Still, I don’t really understand the logic of doing bracketed flat fees instead of just doing a straight percentage that reflects actual cost. If I recall correctly, Santa Clara County charges a straight percentage and they seem to handle it just fine.
I own a business and have a merchant account for running credit cards. For online charges, the fee is about 2.5%, regardless of the amount. Perhaps since so many of the charges will be unusually large, SF was able to get an account with a tiered fee structure.
You don’t have to wait in line to pay the last day. Your little blue payment envelope just has to be postmarked by the last day.