Alan Appel Photo
Duncan Goodall was four cents behind on his taxes. He didn’t know it. But the city was ready to take his property away.
So Goodall, the owner of Koffee? on Audubon Street, learned earlier this month.
His story showed how little it takes to become a tax outlaw in a city strapped for cash — and how frustrating it can be to try to find human beings to settle simple matters in the city bureaucracy. Even trying to pay all your taxes can prove a struggle.
On May 1 Goodall received a tax bill for $3.23 — along with a threat from the city to place a lien his property if he didn’t pay up within two weeks.
Five days earlier he had paid what he thought was the last bill, $3.19. Apparently payment had crossed in the mail. Now a dangerous four-cent gap — representing newly placed interest — existed.
During an interview at Koffee? this week, Goodall likened the stamped notice of a threatened lien for less than the cost of a large latte to “taking a sledge hammer to whack a fly on the wall”
These big threats for inadvertent non-payment of pennies in accrued interest on business property tax came at the tail end of a year-and-a-half saga of miscommunication between city tax officials and the owner of the successful Audubon Street hangout.
Eight polite letters on Goodall’s part had resulted in a threat to take his property, and for a tax deficiency of under a nickel.
Goodall’s a big tough guy who dislikes how frustrating it often is to do business in New Haven.
The salt in the wound was receiving a lien threat for alleged unpaid pennies on tables, chairs, and equipment at a different coffee shop, Moka on Orange Street — a business Goodall had sold back in December 2008. (The business closed; it’s now has new owners and is called Bru.)
How would Goodall handle the Four Cent Gap?
First, the Tale of the Eight Polite Letters…
In December 2008, Goodall wrote to both the city tax assessor and the tax collector to inform them that Moka was dissolved. In June 2009 he paid $221.48, what he thought was the final business property tax.
Just to be sure he sent two more letters reminding the assessor and collector that Moka no longer existed.
In September 2009 the city sent him his declaration of personal property taxes for 2009 for the business that he’d sold in 2008.
None of these communications was signed. In January of 2010, a real name appeared on the tax bill. A “Ms. Kirby” was requesting $211.94 for 2008, which Goodall had already paid. (That would be Tamara Kirby, a back tax investigator with the Finance Department.)
Goodall wrote back that it had to be a mistake and did not pay. In March “Ms. Kirby” replied it was no mistake, but the January 2010 bill, as he’d paid the 2009 bill previously.
Goodall was becoming, well, upset. How could that be, Goodall wrote back as the business was dissolved and business taxes previously paid?
“Now I’m pissed. So I start screaming to my aldermen, Roland Lemar and Bitsie Clark,” Goodall wrote in a letter, this time not to the tax office but to this reporter.
That prompted a call from Michael Pinto, a city economic development officer who as an attorney also helps out with tax queries. He offered the explanation that had been lacking. The total final business property tax for 2008 was $423.88. Goodall had paid only the first half in June 2009, and he owed the second half, Pinto informed Goodall.
Had “Ms Kirby” explained this to Goodall, much grief and unhappy letter writing could have been averted.
“Every time I get a letter from the city, I’m mad,” Goodall said. He expressed extreme skepticism about the truth of mayoral statements that New Haven is business friendly. “Every interaction is a threat, fine, a bump up in permit fees.”
But the saga was not quite complete. After he paid the second and last installment of $211.94, another bill came, on May 1, for $3.19, which was the accrued interest during all the letter-writing months.
That was the letter with the note threatening lien. In the time it took for the check to get to the city and to process, another five cents of interest had been added, so Goodall’s balance was still outstanding.
His conclusion: “Crazy, crazy, crazy,” and dismay.
This time, he wrote not letters but two notes, if not dripping, then laced with irony, on a photocopy of the bill. First: “Really? You are going to lien my property for $3.23! Nice. You folks are fantastic.”
The second: “On 4/27/10 I sent in a check for $3.19. Thus, I owe .04. Please accept this check for ten cents just in case you folks don’t get around to processing my check until June or July. Keep the change. Duncan.”
This process, along with the time-consuming in-person appearances for permissions to deploy outdoor tables and signage, has not made Goodall a business believer in New Haven. “They should have an online form, paid with PayPal,” he suggested, instead of making people spend so much time writing letters and in city offices.
“This is not a good use of a businessman’s time.”
Goodall said his time should be spent building up his business or starting new ones. So many of the systems in play, he said, “are designed to make city employees’ lives easier, not business people.”
Goodall understands mistakes are made. He argued that the city bureaucracy’s tone could change.
“There’s no please or thank you. There’s a pervasive atmosphere of arrogance: Do what I say or else! The classic example: a lien on my property for $3.23.”
When asked for an explanation of the lien notice accompanying Goodall’s bill for $3.23, an assistant in the tax collector’s office referred a reporter to city spokesperson Jessica Mayorga. This was the city’s email response:
“After a taxpayer has failed to pay an outstanding personal property bill for more than four months, the city provides notice that liens may be placed on the property if the delinquency continues. The fact that a lien may be placed on an individual’s property does not mean that a lien will be placed, only that this remains a legally viable option for ensuring full payment of an outstanding tax debt. In this case, the taxpayer fully paid the outstanding debt and no legal action whatsoever was necessary.”
A call for explanation to the Corporation Counsel’s office was not returned.
Mayorga was asked for further clarification about Goodall’s specific case.
“As far as we know, the Tax Collector never received any of these letters. We are in the process of researching whether another department may have received such communication,” she responded.
Goodall kept copies of the letters. He’s pictured higher up in this story holding the copies.
Despite all this, Goodall said he is indeed starting a new business: “An online business. I don’t have to work with the city.”