Hundreds of tax payments come into the Department of Taxation daily without a payment voucher. This creates problems – for the Department and for you. Very early in the processing cycle for returns, the returns are separated from the accompanying checks and payment vouchers. The payment and voucher are sent through a separate process from the returns and are scanned by our automated remittance processing system.
The payment voucher identifies the taxpayer, the tax type, the tax period, and the amount of tax being paid. Without an accompanying payment voucher, the time frame for processing a payment is significantly prolonged. The Department must research and attempt to identify which taxpayer, tax account and period the payment is to be applied to. Then a voucher is manually created so that the payment can be processed and posted, hopefully, to the correct taxpayer, tax type and account. If a return and payment come in without a payment voucher, it is very likely that the return will post to your account creating a tax due amount before your payment can be credited to against that liability. You will then receive a bill for the tax due, even if you sent in a check (but not a payment voucher!) with the return.
The Department receives many telephone calls from very unhappy taxpayers who receive a tax bill because they did not include the appropriate payment voucher with their tax payment.
We ask for your help by including the appropriate payment vouchers for your returns with payments. Also, please use your new Tax I.D. number. Doing these things will help the returns and payments process smoothly through our system, ensure the payment is applied to the proper account, eliminate the necessity of sending you a bill for taxes due, and reduce the cost of government.
If you don’t know your new Hawaii Tax I.D. number, you may find it using our Internet Tax License Search program by going to our home page at www.state.hi.us/tax and choosing “Search the Tax Licenses” on the right side of the screen under the heading “On-line Services”.
Kurt Kawafuchi is the Director of Taxation for the state of Hawaii
