Municipalities and school districts in Schuylkill County looking to drop the Central Tax Bureau of Pennsylvania, "Centax," as their local services tax collector won't have a problem, Leo Schwartz, vice chairman of the Schuylkill County Tax Collection Committee, said Monday.
In July, the Schuylkill County Tax Collection Committee officially dropped Centax as its earned income tax collector and hired Berkheimer Associates, Bangor, Northampton County. This left municipalities and school districts who contracted Centax on their own to collect the local services tax wondering whether or not they could get out of their contracts with Centax as well.
On Monday, Patricia A. McNamara, president of Berkheimer Associates, sent out a press release which should put everyone at ease, Schwartz said.
"Centax, after struggling with the implementation of Act 32, is pleased to announce that last night it signed a mutual cooperation agreement with H.A. Berkheimer. The basis of the agreement is that there will be a smooth transition of all contracts with existing TCCs and PSDs as quickly as possible, for those government entities agreeing to have Berkheimer handle their contracts," McNamara said in the statement.
"Centax believes strongly that it is in the best interest of all government agencies to go with one collection bureau in order to minimize the difficulty of the transition. Since there are a multitude of contracts, dealing with only one collection bureau will be faster and will reduce the chaos that has existed at Centax over the past several months," McNamara said.
The transition may take up to six weeks, she said.
"The transition will include not only Act 32 contracts, but also all municipal contracts, such as local service taxes, per capita taxes, real estate taxes, mercantile taxes, business privilege taxes, amusement taxes, etc.," she said.
The TCC is scheduled to have its next meeting at 6 p.m. Sept. 25 at Schuylkill County Courthouse, Courtroom 1.
However, Schwartz said if an emergency meeting is required before then, the TCC's 72 delegates, 62 from municipalities and 11 from school districts, will be contacted.
In 2010, the TCC hired Centax as its earned income tax collector under state Act 32 to process tax bills for Schuylkill County municipalities and school districts.
On June 27, the TCC ousted Centax as its EIT collector, since the Allegheny County firm had been failing to return tax money to those entities in a timely manner.
On July 10, the TCC hired H.A. Berkheimer Inc. as the EIT collector for the county for a term to end Dec. 31, 2013.