D.C. Taxes Woman for Year Before She Moved to the City

A D.C. woman spent months fighting a tax bill from the year before she moved to the city.

Elizabeth Leblanc moved to the district in 2012. In January the D.C. tax office sent her a notice saying she owed more than $6,000 in taxes from 2011, when she lived in Virginia.

“I didn't even live in D.C. in 2011, so this is clearly a mistake that will be easily cleared up,” she thought.

But no one replied to her until July, and by then she had received another notice saying due to interest, she owed more than $9,000.

"They're willfully inept, almost, in this case," Leblanc said. "I'd call; nobody would call back. They would pass me from office to office. It would take weeks or months to get responses to emails."

Because she put her new D.C. address on her federal tax return in 2012, the D.C. tax office assumed she owed taxes in the district as well.

After the D.C. tax office acknowledged its mistake, collectors didn’t stop.

“I got a collection agency letter for $13,000 for taxes and fees,” she said.

“First of all, I apologize to her,” said David Umansky of the D.C. chief financial officer’s office. “It should not have happened.”

The tax office is reviewing its procedures.

“Something slipped, and as I said, we’re going through how our processes work on this kind of thing to make sure it doesn't happen again,” Umansky said.

Despite assurances from the city that this has been cleared up, Leblanc still worries this will affect her credit score as she plans to buy a home next year.

To avoid such a mistake, use the address of where you were living in the tax when you fill out your forms, tax officials said.