Michelle Cummings

Review of City of Philadelphia, Departme...

I wish I could give zero stars. I recently receive...

I wish I could give zero stars. I recently received letters saying I owe taxes to the city of Philadelphia. It appears they may have been sending letters to me for months to the wrong address. According to my accountant, they are overlooking the fact I lived and worked in NY for 6 months prior to moving to Philadelphia and that I don t owe any money. I proceeded to call the number on the form, which apparently was the wrong number. I kept being sent to different departments and no one knew what to do despite the letter directing me to them. They then gave me a different lady s phone number. I called the number and it went straight to voicemail - that stated I m not here, leave a message -no indication who she was, who she worked for etc. which seemed strange for working in a tax department. I proceeded to call for a few hours with the same response, during working hours in the middle of the day. I called the wrong number on the form again the next day and was again given the same ladies information. I explained the voicemail situation so they went personally to find this woman at her desk, who happened to be the same woman s voice on her voicemail and doesn t answer the phone. I explained my situation, and she proceeded to tell me it was taxes for the time period Jan-July 2015 that were never paid. I explained that i didn t live or work in Philly during that time, and that i paid appropriate NY taxes. she continued to tell me it was taxes for working in philly and living in NY (western, upstate ny). I informed her i did not commute 6 hours each way to work everyday, but she still seemed to have little understanding. She then told me to send all this information to an their address for review and that they would fix it. I promptly collected the required w2s and mailed it to her, along with a letter with the dates i moved to philly and all of my contact info. I have received zero response from her. I proceeded to get another letter saying I have to pay by a certain date (which happened to be a date in the past). Now, today I received a letter saying I have been referred to a law department since I have not paid. I work for a prominent public employer in Philadelphia who withdraws city tax and i have an accountant do my taxes. I have wasted so much time trying to resolve the situation with no help from the department. I don t understand why it is so difficult for them to calculate taxes on people who move to Philadelphia halfway through the year. Awful.