Hanover doing great with property tax collection

Western Bureau:

With the third of four planned mobile property tax collection initiatives now on in the parish, Hanover is once again poised to extend its noble tradition as one of the top parishes when it comes to compliance.

Following Friday's stop in the town of Hopewell, Oniffe Bernard, the senior compliance officer at the Hanover Municipal Corporation, said that based on the response to the initiative to date, the collections in the parish will surpass the projections for 2016-2017.

According to Bernard, land owners in the Hopewell area, realising that they could pay their property taxes without having to travel to Lucea, grasped the opportunity provided by the Tax Administration mobile unit, which has been making its way around the parish.

"Because it is now close to the end of the fiscal year, we are bringing the tax office facilities to them (the residents of the parish) to avoid the rush at our office in Lucea," said Bernard.

AREAS VISITED

Bernard added that, to date, the mobile unit has visited areas such as Logwood and Orange Bay. Plans are also afoot to visit the Chester Castle area before the end of the month. The mobile facilities operate from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on each visit to an area.

"The response has been great, the turnout is good, we are getting persons to come out and pay their property taxes," said Bernard, who noted that his department is very pleased with the level of compliance.

"At the end, the result will show."

... Parish among most compliant

In pointing out that Hanover is always among the top parishes with respect to its compliance rate annually, Oniffe Bernard, the senior compliance officer at the Hanover Municipal Corporation, said the only difference with this year's property tax collection schedule is that the expectations are pointing to them exceeding the projected collection target.

Although not disclosing the projected collections target figure, Bernard was extremely confident in noting that "based on where we are at the moment, we know that we are going to reach it and surpass it".

With this being the first year that the mobile collection unit has been introduced in the parish, Bernard said that in previous years his department used to establish outstations in specific communities, but the introduction of the mobile unit widens and improves the payment method.