Over the past few weeks, Stonington Tax Collector Linda Camelio has been flooded with calls, emails and visits from property owners wanting to prepay their July 2018 taxes before Sunday.

Their rush is due to the recent tax bill passed by Congress that limits real estate tax deductions to $10,000 beginning with returns for 2018. By paying the taxes now, they hope to benefit from a deduction on their 2017 income tax filing due this coming April.

Compounding the problem is that some media reports have featured tax experts recommending people make such prepayments, and other states, such as New York and New Jersey, are allowing it.

Camelio said she recently received a 2 a.m. email from a property owner who wanted to send her a $30,000 check. As she opened her office mail Wednesday afternoon, there were checks from property owners with one for almost $11,000. As she stood at the counter, another taxpayer asked her questions about prepaying her taxes.

This week the IRS released a statement saying, "A prepayment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017. State or local law determines whether and when a property tax is assessed, which is generally when the taxpayer becomes liable for the property tax imposed."

And yet Camelio and fellow tax collectors along the shoreline are being inundated with calls and emails from taxpayers eager to prepay.  

Most tax collectors, such as Camelio, are telling people they cannot accept the prepayments because state law does not allow municipalities to do so.

Camelio said the Connecticut Tax Collectors’ Association has an opinion from its corporation counsel advising that there is no state statute authorizing tax collectors to accept prepayment of July 2018 taxes.

In Lyme, where taxes are collected once a year in July, Tax Collector Cynthia Beers said Thursday that the calls and emails keep coming in to her office from people wanting to prepay.

"But we're not accepting any payments and it's making some people unhappy," she said, adding that she does not know what the tax rate will be for 2018-19.

In Waterford, Tax Collector Alan Wilensky said he has been receiving a lot of calls over the past several days about prepayments.

"I'm telling them that, according to an interpretation of state statute by attorneys from the Connecticut Tax Collectors' Association and our town attorney, that it is not legal for us to collect taxes that are not yet levied," he said.

He said the only taxes that the town can now collect are those due Jan. 1, 2018.

But in Old Lyme, Tax Collector Judith Tooker said she will accept prepayments.

"They can pay me whatever they want," she said. "There's a helluva of a lot of confusion. I'm telling them that I'm not sure if they'll be able to deduct it from their income taxes."

Taxpayers are confused

Camelio explained her office cannot accept the prepayments because the town has not set a tax rate for the 2018-19 fiscal year on which the bills would be based. That tax rate will not be set until next May or June. Further complicating the situation in Stonington is the town is undergoing a revaluation and the new grand list, which helps determine the tax rate along with the budget and revenues, will not be finalized by Tax Assessor Marsha Standish until early next year.

Confusing for some taxpayers is that in many communities, such as Stonington, they still can pay the second half of their current tax bill, which comes due Jan. 1, 2018, before the end of this year to claim a deduction on their 2017 taxes. But that opportunity always has been in effect and was not altered by the new tax law.

“When people heard they would not be able to write off (all of) their real estate tax payments, the phone calls started coming in,” Camelio said, adding that almost all municipalities in the state are not accepting prepayments.

She said tax collectors only have the authority to collect taxes when they have been issued a tax warrant and a rate bill. She said this means that she and her fellow tax collectors do not have the authority to collect prepayments of taxes that will come due in July 2018 and beyond.

The town does have the authority to collect the Jan. 1, 2018, installment on current taxes during December 2017, because her office has a signed rate bill and tax warrant. She said that while those taxes came due on July 1, 2017, the town accepts payments in two installments as a “convenience for the taxpayer.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy this week declined to sign an executive order that would allow municipalities to accept prepayment of taxes.  

j.wojtas@theday.com