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The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday upheld a $59,000 tax penalty for a group of area property owners who claimed their late payments were due to a postage error.
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Bob Rubin, an attorney with Boutin Jones who represented the property owners, made an appeal to the board to grant penalty refund claims. The payment issue involved a group of 28 “apparently related” property tax owners, with 92 separate parcels, according to the meeting documents.
Rubin told the board that five days before the Dec. 10 payment deadline, an accounting employee took a batch of property tax payments to a post office and sent them by Priority Mail without realizing each box of tax payments required additional $5 fees. Two boxes were returned after the deadline for insufficient postage.
“It’s just unjust for a $10 postage error to result in $59,000 of penalties,” Rubin said.
Deputy County Counsel Keith Floyd told the board there must be a reasonable cause, beyond taxpayer’s control, to forgive the penalty. Previous cases, he said, establish that an innocent employee mistake in the mailing or handling of a tax bill does not qualify.
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The item was on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, where uncontroversial matters are passed in a single vote. The board voted 4-0 to pass the consent agenda. Supervisor Phil Serna was absent.
The refund claims, which were included in the meeting documents, say many of the property ownership entities are managed by AKT Investments, a land development firm. The company was founded by Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, the Bee reported in 2020, and the different entities are managed by Tsakopoulos, Rubin told the board. The properties are scattered across the county, assessor records show, including in Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Folsom and unincorporated land.
Rubin said in an email that his firm does not comment on pending matters. A voicemail left with AKT Investments on Monday was not returned.
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