CPA and Bookkeeping McKinney Alternative CPA McKinney. The city's penalty steps

How a late notice gets read

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Home for the Holidays shuts down downtown for Santa, a tree, and shopping. It is a weekend the whole square looks forward to. The deposits from it still belong to the month they were earned, and the city hotel report does not wait for the decorations to come down.

Late hotel tax in McKinney is 5 percent in the first 30 days, 10 percent after 30 days, and 10 percent annual interest once a payment is 60 days overdue. That ladder is the city's. We repeat it so you can see the first step before you are standing on the second.

A notice feels personal. It is usually just the calendar. The report was due, the row was empty or short, and the percentage is the one printed on the city page. Knowing the steps does not make them kind. It makes them predictable.

Once 30 days pass, the percentage doubles. Once 60 days pass, interest joins. The ladder is a published schedule, not a tale about the square. It requires a date. We would rather the report leave before the first date than explain the third one.

If a report is already late, say so. We still file what can be filed, and we still separate the tax from the penalty so the books show both. A penalty sits apart from revenue and apart from any guest charge. The cost belongs to the date.

Some late filings can raise a question about relief. That question belongs in a conversation about your own record, not in a promise on a web page. Bring the notice. We will read the dates on it.

A month that includes the hotel report before the due date never meets the ladder. That is the whole ambition of the close on this point. The report should leave before the first step.

The sales tax return has its own date, the twentieth. The hotel report has its own. We keep them as two dates, because mixing them is how one of them gets forgotten.

The tax and the penalty are not the same line. The tax belongs with the stays. The penalty is the cost of being late. Interest, once it starts, is a third line. If all three are dumped into one hotel expense, the next month cannot tell a late bill from a busy one.

When a notice arrives, write the period it names before you write the amount. A notice for June that is opened in September is still a June problem. Paying it from September's card does not move the story into September. The close for June stays open until the tax, the penalty, and the interest each have a name.

If you have already paid and you are not sure which of the three you paid, bring the notice and the bank line. We would rather split a payment that was lumped than leave a year that looks like the city invented a new tax. The city did not. The calendar did.

A notice that only names a penalty, with the tax already paid, still belongs in the month the notice gives. Leaving it in the month you opened the envelope hides the lateness from the year that caused it.