HARLINGEN — Tax bills are going in the mail Wednesday as paying up is becoming easier for thousands of area taxpayers.
For weeks, Tony Yzaguirre, Cameron County’s tax assessor-collector, has been entering into agreements with the city of Harlingen and the Harlingen, Los Fresnos and Rio Hondo school districts, allowing the county to collect their property taxes.
Through negotiations, he showed the districts the county’s tax collections would save them a total of $54,250 a year after the law firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair, Sampson had collected their taxes for decades, he said.
Now, the four districts’ taxpayers can stop off any one of 10 county offices to pay their taxes after years of driving to the law firm’s Harlingen office.
As a result of the four districts’ consolidation, taxpayers representing a total of 113,948 accounts are paying $105.9 million in property taxes, bringing the county’s total levy to $486.25 million.
Growing drive-thru office system
As part of an ongoing project, Yzaguirre’s expanding his new system of drive-thru tax offices that’s helped him collect 100 percent of property taxes within most of the county’s taxing districts for the first time.
“The county is improving our system and opening new locations to make it easier on taxpayers,” he said.
Now, Yzaguirre is buying a six-lane drive-thru office for $200,000 at the site of the old Capital One building at 300 W. Van Buren Ave. in Harlingen’s downtown area.
The move will help ease any crowding at the county’s Wilson Road tax office, he said.
“We’re putting the money back into the system to serve the county the best way possible,” he said. “We’re showing the public where we’re spending the money.”
So far, Yzaguirre’s opened drive-thru tax offices in Harlingen, San Benito, Los Fresnos, Port Isabel and Brownsville.
In Los Fresnos, he’s adding a second drive-thru lane at the tax office at 745 W. Ocean Blvd.
“More and more people are using drive thru-lanes,” he said. “It’s faster to get people in and out. They don’t have to get out — they don’t have to go to the lobby.”
100-percent tax collection
Last year, the coronavirus outbreak led him to focus on opening more drive-thru offices, he said.
“COVID continues to be an issue,” he said. “People don’t want to use the lobby anymore. They prefer to use the drive-thru lanes. This alleviates that (COVID-19) concern.”
Despite the pandemic, the county collected 100 percent of property taxes from most of its taxing districts for the first time.
“We were able to collect 100 percent of taxes from the majority of jurisdictions using drive-thru windows — they pay for themselves,” he said. “Never in the history of Cameron County have we collected 100 percent. We hope to continue that collection.”
