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STRATHAM — The Board of Selectmen voted this week to accept payment on taxes early, a practice previous boards considered and rejected.

“I don’t think we had the technological sophistication we have now in our tax collector’s office,” said Town Administrator Paul Deschaine, about why the proposal was rejected by previous boards.

“It’s something that I’ve wanted to offer to taxpayers for a long time,” said Tax Collector and Town Clerk Joyce Charbonneau. She said she routinely receives calls from residents asking if they can pre-pay their taxes.

The program is already up and running, and had two people pre-pay portions of their tax bills on Tuesday, Oct. 6, the day after selectmen voted it into practice.

“We’ve had a lot of anxious calls in the past few months from people worried that the tax bills are going up,” she said.

Charbonneau said, as she tells the callers, she can’t guess what the tax rate will do this year, but she said it will probably be coming out about a month late. “People are worried and some people want to put a little away and whittle down the tax bill so they aren’t hit with the full cost all at once,” she said.

Charbonneau said people can set up a schedule with her, or just stop by at their leisure, but that she would not be calling or sending out reminders to people if they don’t stick to their schedule.

“Anything that we can do to make things a little easier for people, particularly in this economy, is a good thing,” she said. “They can come in every month or every week— or every day if they want and they can pre-pay as much as they want.”

At this point, residents can pre-pay toward their tax bill as much as they want and at the end of the year if there is a remaining balance it will be refunded to them. In the beginning of the year, residents can pre-pay toward the July tax bill and any extra funds can be refunded or applied toward the December tax bill.

Other towns in the area use systems of pre-payment. “I’ve spoken with some of them and they said it is no problem,” she said. “There is no additional administrative burden.”

There was some discussion about the possibility of taking payments as far as the state law allows, two years ahead of when the taxes are due.

“I don’t see a problem with letting people pay two years in advance,” Selectman David Canada said. “But, I also don’t see a problem in letting you crawl before you run,” he told Charbonneau, pointing out that if she decided later to extend how far people could pay in advance, it would not require approval from the Board of Selectmen.

“As always, Joyce is out there to help the customers,” Canada said.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20091009-NEWS-910090315