Regional News

Governor signs Condotta legislation to provide flexibility of property tax payments

Mar 14, 2014

Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation today providing county treasurers more flexibility in accepting property tax payments.

House Bill 2309, prime-sponsored by Rep. Cary Condotta, gives county treasurers options in receiving payments and also reduces penalties and interest on delinquent property tax payments.

“The economic downturn exposed some issues we had in our state’s property tax payment system. I worked with Spokane County Treasurer Rob Chase on addressing those issues and we came up with House Bill 2309,” said Condotta, R-East Wenatchee. “This legislation addresses concerns we heard about how property tax payments were collected, penalties incurred and the lack of flexibility in law for property tax payments. This law also restores some fairness to the payment system.”

The law will:

apply interest and penalties only to the unpaid portion of property taxes as opposed to the full-year amount;
allow a county treasurer to waive interest and penalties on delinquent property taxes in which a taxpayer paid the incorrect amount of tax due through an apparent taxpayer error; and
allow a county treasurer to accept partial property tax payments.

The bill passed the House unanimously, 98-0, and the Senate, 44-5. The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the session.