Princeton officials: Municipality will only issue refunds for excess taxes paid beyond fourth quarter

Residents in Princeton prepaid $28 million in tax payments to the municipality  before Jan. 1 in anticipation of changes to the tax code for 2018. Now some people want refunds for those extra payments.

Princeton Administrator Marc Dashield told the council on Monday night that the town has started to receive refund requests. Asked by Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller how many requests the town has received, he did not provide a number, but said so far “a handful” of residents had made requests.

“I’d like to put a policy in place that there will be no refunds for the first and second quarter,” Dashield said. “Once the third and fourth quarter taxes are billed, we would then process any refunds at that point if there are refunds (due) after that billing period.”

Dashield said the first and second quarter are already here so it does not make sense to process refunds for this period. “For the third and fourth quarter, It just makes sense at the end, once we know what the billing is, to apply (the payments) to the billing and then refund any excess,” he said.

Some municipalities are refunding the payments their residents rushed to make before the new year, while other municipalities refused to accept any payments beyond the first two quarters.