Arkansas residents now able to make online tax payments
Tommy Land, Commissioner of State Lands (COSL) for the State of Arkansas, announced the introduction of online tax payments for delinquent property taxes last week. Union County Tax Collector Karen Scott and Assessor Vicki Deaton talked about what this means for local taxpayers.
According to a press release distributed by Land’s office, several pieces of legislation approved by the Arkansas General Assembly last year have paved the way to an easier tax paying process for state residents.
“We’re working to accommodate property owners and modernize the office,” Land said in the press release.
In addition to making online payments for delinquent property taxes available for Arkansas residents, the process for redeeming tax-delinquent properties has also been streamlined. According to the release, now, anyone is able to redeem real estate back into the owner’s name, where previously only the property owner or an heir were allowed to do so.
Deaton explained that the change in redemption rules should make it easier for extended family members to redeem delinquent properties for the properties’ owner.
“It used to be that if you were an heir to the property, you had to provide all sorts of documentation to prove who
you were, and you would have to show the chain of title. Say it had been in your grandfather’s name and you inherited it from your father – you would have to have both death certificates, your birth certificate, all amounts of documentation,” Deaton said. “Now all you have to do is just sign an affidavit that you have an interest in it and they’ll let anyone do it. Now, that property won’t transfer to that person that’s redeemed it; it only allows them to redeem it to the person that went delinquent.”
Scott explained that the COSL website produces a monthly report that is available to the public showing all property redemptions (delinquent taxes paid) within each county, so residents can easily find out whether their taxes are delinquent or not.
To pay one’s delinquent property taxes online, one should go to cosl.org, the Land Commissioner’s website. From there, one will click the ‘Pay taxes/Purchase’ button on the home page of the website. The website will ask the user to search either by parcel number or name; Deaton can help residents find their parcel number for any property.
There, one can choose to pay the delinquent tax online or request a petition to redeem the property if the tax has been paid.
Scott said her office previously had a system for paying personal taxes online, but it was too buggy; her office is working to fix the system so that it can go back online sometime in the future.
Tax day this year is Wednesday, April 15. Land said in his press release that his hope is that paying property taxes will be easier this year.
“We spent much of 2019 significantly reducing red tape for owners trying to redeem real estate,” he said. “We appreciate the Arkansas General Assembly for approving the legislation that cleared the path for this.