To our residents,

We continue to receive complaints about mail services:

• No paper tax bill was received in the mail
• Mailed payments did not make it to City Hall

To avoid problems caused by lost mail, I urge you to consider the following:

• When you mail a check, please do so early and check your account online (https://fairfaxva.gov/mytaxes) to verify that we’ve received your payment.

• If you use a bank bill payer service, please pay early and verify that we’ve received your payment. Bill payer envelopes are NOT postmarked meaning that if we receive your payment after the due date, we’ve no way to verify that you paid on time.

• If you wait until the last minute:

  ○      please use the 24 hour drop box in front of City Hall next to the flagpoles. We check it Monday through Friday without fail. Checks only, no cash.  You do not have to park to drop payments in the drop box.

  ○      when mailing the payment at the post office, please mail at the counter and receive proof of mailing.

• Please, please, please sign up for City Alerts. If you don’t get a bill, a City Alert will remind you to call us. If you’ve paid, the alert will hopefully prompt you to verify that your payment has been received.  Click here to sign up for Fairfax City Alerts: fairfaxva.gov/fairfaxcityalert.

Unelated to lost or delayed mail I also have this suggestion:

• If you pay by e-check, please make sure your bank account gets debited. Many a penalty has been levied because of typos. Again, consider paying early and verifying that we’ve received your payment.

Finally, this year we have engaged JP Morgan to process our personal property payments received via US Postal Service.  Their Binghamton NY center (return envelope address) provides the highest service level at the best rates to our community.

Late pay penalties are severe and it is our goal to minimize them. Let us know if we can do more, we are here to help.

Thank you

Tom Scibilia, CPA, MGT