Arguably, the primary function of the County Treasurer is to collect taxes from tax payers. The MIPS Treasurer application makes this easy with the use of a shopping cart system. The Tax Collection screen is the best place to start when searching for any statements to collect taxes on.
By default, the Tax Collection screen will display a tax year, and a single search field. A variety of things can be entered into the search field, including the name of the tax payer, the parcel ID of the property, the statement number, and even the address specified on the statement. It is important to understand that when searching for a name for example, the system is looking for an exact pattern of characters. In other words, if the name on the statement is "Doe, John" searching for "Doe,John" would not find that statement. A better way to find statements belonging to the Doe family, in this case, would be to search for "Doe,". Also, the way the names appear on the tax statements depends on the data we receive from the Assessor's office so they may enter names with the first names first.
The bottom portion of the screen displays any statements that match the search criteria. This will include Real Estate, Personal Property, Drainage, and Occupation. The information displayed here is fairly basic.
The left side displays property and owner information, while the right hand side displays a summary of the taxes they owe. Important information such as if the parcel is under tax sale, has a partial payment record, or if the statement is under distress warrant are also displayed here. Some additional information can be found on the bottom portion of the card, such as payments already made on the statement or Tax Sale Certificate information. To view more detailed information about the statement, click the blue eyeball button to open the Tax Statement Edit screen.
Once a statement has been found by performing a search, payment can be collected on any statements that have the Pay options available on the statement card. Clicking either of these buttons will create a payment for that statement and add it to the shopping cart. The First Half button will add a first half payment to the cart, whereas the Total Due button will either add a second half payment (if the first half has already been paid) or a payment for the full amount.
Other payments may get created as well if the statement has outstanding back taxes or there is a drainage or occupation statement for the same parcel. If a statement has back taxes due, payment cannot be collected on the newer statements until the back taxes have been paid. That is reflected in the shopping cart when back taxes are removed and the current tax statements are also removed.
Sometimes there is a need to keep track of multiple people paying for a single statement, or sometimes even multiple statements. In this scenario, we can enter multiple payees. Next to the Paid By field, there is a green plus icon. Clicking this button shows the multiple payees screen. A payment method, name, and amount paid can be recorded for each additional payee. This information is captured when the transaction is posted, and up to 4 payees will be printed on the receipts.
Once the payment has been added to the cart, the next things to check are the payment and interest dates. The Date Paid will be the date printed on the receipt, while the Interest Date is only used to calculate the interest amount. If the Date Paid changes, the interest date will follow. In addition, if the interest date changes the interest amount for all payments in the shopping cart will be recalculated using the new date.
If the county closes business early, there is a Business Day option that can be utilized. This can be found in the Options Screen. This date can be set forward and the Date Paid on any payments collected will default to the given day.
Once everything has been filled out, the payment(s) can be posted by clicking the Post button. This will print a receipt for each payment that was posted as part of the transaction, and apply those payments to their statements. A Transaction record will also be created to keep track of the payments that were made, who collected the payments, and the payees that were included in the transaction along with their methods of payment.
