The Chester County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously at the recent public commissioners' meeting to extend the deadline for payment of county property taxes. The decision was made due to the economic impact of the coronavirus.
Recognizing that the finances of many Chester County taxpayers have been negatively affected by the closure of local businesses, layoffs and uncertainty of financial markets instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the commissioners voted to waive any fees or penalties on taxes paid in their entirety by Friday, July 31.
The commissioners' ability to enact the tax deadline extension is a result of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Act 15 of 2020, signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf on April 20. Act 15 of 2020 allows taxing authorities such as Chester County that impose taxes on the assessed value of real property to provide relief to taxpayers.
Work by the county's Department of Information Services has technically enabled this deadline extension to 2020 county property taxes to occur. The deadline relief is provided as a response to the COVID-19 crisis and is not intended to apply to any prior or subsequent tax years. Taxpayers do not have to do anything to take advantage of this extension; any payments in full received by July 31 will be credited as being paid on time.
The county's technical system modifications also allow for tax deadline extensions for those local municipalities that currently contract with the Chester County Treasurer's Office for the collection of local municipality taxes. Residents of municipalities that contract with the county Treasurer's Office should check to see if their municipality is enacting the option to extend the deadline for payment of municipal taxes.
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