Most of our finances are online or done at least on a computer nowadays. And that includes our taxes, which now 70% of taxpayers e-file and about as many have their refunds directly deposited into their bank accounts.
But for one state this year, my own state of Georgia, it was disastrous.
Somehow – they have not yet divulged how – they over payed about 640,000 dollars in refunds. Many of which just showed up in taxpayers’ bank accounts last Thursday.
The Georgia Department of Revenue didn’t even realize their was a problem until the next week when they put a stop payment order out on the refunds on Tuesday.
And to make matters worse, they simply did not inform the public. Which left many taxpayers that had hundreds of dollars in their accounts on Tuesday morning with nothing but a string of overdrafts in their accounts come lunch time
Not good news for the new Revenue Commissioner Douglas J. MacGinnitie, who started his post last Tuesday two days before the erroneous refunds were deposited into tax payers accounts.
In response to this mess, MacGinnitie said, “Clearly, we need to work to make the Department of Revenue more customer-focused. I assume that is why the governor asked me to take this job.”
