I am new to Lakewood, and I have read on this site that Lakewood will be leaving the Regional Income Tax Agency and am curious if a timeline has been established for the transition to an in-house Tax Department. I believe the City faces a huge challenge to perform at the level of service that RITA provides at a cost less than roughly 2-4% of tax collections. I say 2-4% because cost varies with tax collections and # of transactions.
If anyone knows of such a timeline, I'd appreciate your response.
Thank you,
Jason
Income Tax Collections
Moderator: Jim O'Bryan
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Jason Stewart
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dl meckes
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Thomas J. George
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RITA Costs
Jason,
In 2000, RITA (Regional Income Tax Agency) charged the City of Lakewood $250,228 to collect $14,624,618 in taxes owed the City (1.71%).
In 2004 RITA charged the City of Lakewood $528,816 to collect $15,841,273 in taxes owed the City (3.34%).
RITA's charges to the City will continue to increase in the coming years as during that period, RITA's indebtedness has risen from $2,572,284 in (2000) to $20,674,242 (2004).
In addition, the City of Lakewood can do a much better job of serving you, our customer, than RITA's regional offices in Brecksville.
Ever seeking cost savings measures and better customer service, Council recently approved our initiative to drop RITA and to collect our City income taxes in-house.
The City's contract with RITA runs through Dec. 31, 2005.
With a highly experienced and trained staff, we are busy putting things in place to assume full in-house income tax collections effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Thank you for your comments.
TJG
In 2000, RITA (Regional Income Tax Agency) charged the City of Lakewood $250,228 to collect $14,624,618 in taxes owed the City (1.71%).
In 2004 RITA charged the City of Lakewood $528,816 to collect $15,841,273 in taxes owed the City (3.34%).
RITA's charges to the City will continue to increase in the coming years as during that period, RITA's indebtedness has risen from $2,572,284 in (2000) to $20,674,242 (2004).
In addition, the City of Lakewood can do a much better job of serving you, our customer, than RITA's regional offices in Brecksville.
Ever seeking cost savings measures and better customer service, Council recently approved our initiative to drop RITA and to collect our City income taxes in-house.
The City's contract with RITA runs through Dec. 31, 2005.
With a highly experienced and trained staff, we are busy putting things in place to assume full in-house income tax collections effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Thank you for your comments.
TJG
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Jim O'Bryan
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Mayor Tom George, Jason
The Observer is currently working on this story, and will feature it in this or the next issue.
What jumped out at me is not only will service be better, but Lakewood will have a better handle on collecting the taxes from local business and landlords. This has the potential to provide Lakewood with more money that might have fallen through the cracks before.
Would that be a fair assesment?
Jim O'Bryan
The Observer is currently working on this story, and will feature it in this or the next issue.
What jumped out at me is not only will service be better, but Lakewood will have a better handle on collecting the taxes from local business and landlords. This has the potential to provide Lakewood with more money that might have fallen through the cracks before.
Would that be a fair assesment?
Jim O'Bryan
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Bryan Schwegler
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- Location: Lakewood
I just certainly hope that as part of its drive to provide "better customer service" that the City of Lakewood includes online filing and bill payment as RITA does today. It would be a step backwards to not think about this since both state and federal have had e-filing for years now. RITA finally got it this year.
Anything Lakewood does on its own should at least match what RITA offers today.
Anything Lakewood does on its own should at least match what RITA offers today.
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Shelly Gould Burgess
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It all sounds like this is good for Lakewood from what I've read so far. However, a drawback for me and other residents who work outside of Lakewood is that I'll now have an additional agency to whom to pay taxes, because RITA combined my Lakewood taxes with the taxes for the city in which I work. Bummer for me. Better for the community. Ah, well.
"Be like the waterfowl. It goes into the water and comes out dry." - Shri Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh
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Danielle Masters
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I hope this tax collection system works better than RITA. RITA has been a nightmare for us. When they make an error, which they seem to do frequently, it takes forever to get it corrected. We finally got our 1999 filing corrected. So kudos to Lakewood for the new system, hope the transition goes smoothly. Although I do have sympathy for people who work in RITA cities.