St. Charles, Missouri (First Alert 4) – After reports of nearly five-hour wait times to process tax freeze applications for seniors, the St. Charles County Tax Office has come up with some solutions to ease the hassle.
“We opened a dedicated service area for the amended senior citizen property tax exemption applications and hired more staff to help you. We borrowed staff from other departments to speed up the process and get people in and out of the building faster,” said Revenue Director Michelle McBride. “Instead of being able to serve about 270 people a day, we can serve about 700.”
McBride said the service area opens at 8:30 a.m. on weekdays, and early morning is typically the busiest time of day.
“It took me about 15 minutes to get what I need,” applicant Jerel Barney said. “No matter how much (the freeze) is or how little it is, it will be welcome.”
McBride said more than 30,000 people in the county have applied for the suspension. She said about 9,000 were denied and were eligible for corrections. She told First Alert 4 that many of the errors were due to incorrect paperwork.
She estimated that about 4,500 more people came to the office to make changes.
“We’re giving you the opportunity not to say, ‘Come back next year,’ but to say, ‘Come back now, we’ll fix it and get you the right documents so you have them in the future if you need to do the same thing again.'”
McBride said the designated service area will close on Sept. 15. She said if an applicant needs to make changes, they must do so within 15 days of notification.
“Time is of the essence,” she said.
Barney said he feels more confident about future applications.
“I feel like I’m going to give them what they need and my application will be accepted. And now that I know what they’re looking for, I don’t have to come here to fix anything,” he said. “Who wants to pay more taxes?”
McBride said rejection emails come from [email protected] and urged applicants to check their junk and spam folders.
An online search function can also be used to determine whether an application has been accepted or rejected.
The county administration building is located at 201 N 2nd St in St. Charles.
The application process for eligibility to file a tax return for 2025 begins on March 1.
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