Grayson Co. company affected by tax office dilemma

VAN ALSTYNE, Texas (KXII) - A local business says the Grayson County tax office delay in payment processing has caused a big problem.

Paynetworx is an international digital and crypto payment company based out of Van Alstyne. CEO Trent Voigt says they move millions of dollars a day for their clients, but were shocked when they received a delinquent notice for property taxes they paid on time.

They believe the payment processing dilemma with the Grayson County Tax Office has not just affected them, but could be detrimental to small businesses and any other taxpayers.

“And it’s quite shocking to have somebody send you an email and say hey by the way you’re delinquent in your taxes and you could be up for foreclosure,” said Sue-Lynn Voigt, principal owner for Voigt Family Enterprises.

Sue-Lynn and Trent Voigt say they paid their property taxes January 29th, but it wasn’t until Tuesday March 16th when they found out from their bank that their payment was not on record.

“I find out this problem when my banker calls me and turns off our credit line because I was quote embarrassing him because I had not paid my taxes and they were delinquent. That’s pretty embarrassing personally, much less an amazing hit to a financial company,” said Trent Voigt, CEO of Paynetworx.

Their payment to the Grayson County Tax Office was finally processed after calling the office, but that still hasn’t resolved their situation.

“That still looks like we didn’t pay our taxes until after we were given a delinquent notice because it has us paid as of yesterday, not when the money was taken out of our account,” said Sue-Lynn.

“Now I’m still doing damage control, my line of credit is still in trouble and so forth. They updated it on the web and it shows I paid delinquent, it shows I paid on March 15th. I paid on January 29th, I paid on time,” said Trent.

Grayson County Tax Assessor, Bruce Stidham says all payments are processed by hand, and they are backed up by a month because of the pandemic.

Stidham says he sent an overnight letter to Voigt’s bank explaining the situation. The Voigts believe an updated technical system for processing payments would have prevented this issue.

“They could have gone and asked for dispensation if they were having problems due to COVID. But instead they have put delinquency notices out there for anybody. Anybody that has a computer can go on there and look on there and it shows, fraudulently shows that before yesterday that I had not paid my taxes,” said Sue-Lynn.

But Sue-Lynn says if the office knew they were so behind, they shouldn’t be putting out delinquency notices because the effects are more than just fines.

Stidham says Texas property tax code required them to put out delinquency notices even though they knew some of the people getting them weren’t really delinquent.

“The reason I’m coming forward is because this could affect people’s credit scores. This could affect the APR that they get. This could affect loans, student loans. It is far-reaching,” said Sue-Lynn.

Stidham says those affected won’t be penalized with fines for false notices, but we asked about secondary consequences - things like mortgages, loans and credit - that can all be affected by a delinquent property tax balance. Stidham didn’t have an answer.

The Voigt’s are warning all property owners to check to see if they too are listed as delinquent.

Stidham apologizes for the problem and says they’re doing everything they can to correct false notices while processing the remaining payments.

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