Tax Turmoil: NC Law Says Office Doesn’t Have to Send Notices

By Arthur Mondale
Reporter
Published: August 19, 2008

How would you feel if you never received a bill for eight years from a company, only to be hit with interest charges and penalties years later?
Would you call it a clerical error on the businesses part?
One tax office says they’re not at fault, and why one family says they’re reliving a nightmare.
Kelvin Dixon says he and his family never thought they would still be paying for the damages following the flood of 1999.
“You know you have to start all over again,” Dixon said.
But on August 5th, 2008 he got a letter from BB&T Bank saying his account was frozen because of three years of unpaid taxes on his mobile home.
“They’ve done a whole lot of things that violate my constitutional rights,” Dixon said.
Dixon says he never received one bill--acquiring general tax penalties and interest.
“I don’t have to send him a bill by North Carolina law,” said Pitt County tax assessor Glenn Cutrell.  “By North Carolina state law it’s the property tax owner’s responsibility to list and pay taxes in a timely manner…No invoice is necessary.”
But Dixon says he only owned six months of taxes, from November of 1999 to May of 2000. Not three years.
When we first called the tax office we were told the three years of charges which totaled more than $1700 dollars was correct...but after our call, they doubled checked and voided more than $1000 in charges for 2001 and 2002.
The tax collectors office admits they never sent him an invoice for those two years...but the say state law says they don’t have too.

The Dixon’s currently owe a balance of just over $335 which includes the outstanding interest and penalties.
They say it may sound like very little money, but its the principal that matters.
We’re told each month the bill is unpaid interest accrues.