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Adding, Changing, or Removing a Deferred Account

Last Revised:  November 9, 2022

 

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Deferrals are available for those accounts having Homestead and either Over 65 or Disabled exemptions.  An application must be filed with the appraisal district before an account can be deferred.  Interest of 5% per year (for deferral periods that fall in 2018 or later) or 8% per year (for deferral periods prior to 2018) is added to the delinquent levy during the time of the deferral. The levy becomes delinquent 181 days after the end of the deferral date. Beginning with the 2021 tax year, the deferral end date in TCS is the date the tax office mailed a delinquency notice. The CAD Deferral End Date is the date the CAD notified the tax office of the end of the deferral.

If a tax year becomes delinquent after the deferral end date, normal penalty, interest, and attorney fees accrue, even if the delinquency date is within the 180 day grace period. (Texas Tax Code 33.06)

Deferral start and end dates should be entered in the current year, even if they started and/or ended in a prior year.  They do not need to be entered for prior years. The ACT 7 system looks at current year deferral information when calculating deferrals.  Deferrals will be loaded at certified load time each year.

If the deferral end date is before the deferral start date, no deferral interest is calculated.

If a deferral is added to an omitted account, deferral interest is charged only from the delinquency date, assuming that the deferral start date is before that due date. For ex., if a property is added in June 2017 as an omitted account for 2015, the delinquency date for that account is 2/1/2018. Omitted interest begins accruing as of 2/1/2016.  A deferral date of 11/15/2017 is entered later. Assume no payment is made on the account. Omitted interest accrues through 1/31/2018 (for a total of 24%) and deferral interest of 5% per year begins as of 2/1/2018. The omitted interest is still due and is added onto the deferral interest.

For accounts having both deferrals and late quarter pay status, deferral interest remains due, not the normal quarter pay penalty and interest.

Military deferrals: All penalty, interest and attorney fees accrued on an account are waived for all years if a military deferral start date exists in the current year Owner Detail screen. The waiver continues for 60 days after the military deferral end date. Starting the 61st day, 6% interest accrues for the years within the deferral period, starting with the original due dates. Penalty does not accrue for those years. Penalty, interest, and attorney fees remain due for years outside the deferral period. The requirement for having homestead and/or over65 or disability exemptions does not apply to military deferrals. Omitted interest is not charged on accounts with active military deferrals.

For military deferrals, an MD is placed automatically in the Bill Suppress field of the Account Detail tab.

Use the Owner Detail screen to manage deferred accounts and accounts with military deferrals.

ClosedUser Entitlements

The following user entitlements must be set for each user who needs access to the Owner Detail screen. They are part of the Make Value and Levy Account Master Changes and View Only Major Screens tasks.

Users having any job can view the Owner Detail screen. Changes can be made with the CAD Changes Save and Calc AG Rollback job. See Tasks, Entitlements, and Jobs for more information.

ACT8002: Allow users to view the Account Master screens.

ACT8005: Allows users to view the Receivable screen.

PRIOR_YEAR_BUILD: Allow users to click the Prior Year button.

ACCTM_SAVE_AND_CALC_BUTTON: Allow users to click the Save and Calculate button.

ACCTM_OWNER_DETAIL_UPDATE: Allow users to change and insert information on the Owner Detail tab. This includes the value fields on the Summary tab.

 

ClosedClient Preferences:

EFFECTIVE_DEF_DATE: This exists for tax offices that need to differentiate between the attorney fees charged before and after a certain date that is entered in this preference (the default setting is 01/01/1900). If the deferral was begun before the Effective Date set in this client preference, attorney fees will not be charged to any portion of the account delinquent before that date. Penalty and interest are still due. For deferrals started after the Effective Date, attorney fees, penalty, and interest will be charged to any portion delinquent before that date (deferred interest is not included in the calculation of attorney fees). In both cases, interest of 8% will be charged beginning with the deferral start date.  

Quarter pay accounts beginning in tax year 2005 that have been split retain their 6% penalty. Before 2005, the penalty is 12%.

Note: The EFFECTIVE_DEF_DATE must be set to 01/01/1951 or later in order for attorney fees to be considered correctly.

DEF_MONTH_START: This determines when the 5% or 8% deferral interest begins to accrue.  If set to Current, the interest accrues as of the first of the month that the deferral begins (for example, with a deferral start date of March 15, 2017, the interest changes to 8% as of March 1). If set to Next, the interest begins to accrue as of the first of the month following the month in which the deferral begins (with a deferral start date of March 15, 2017, the 8% interest begins April 1, 2002, and normal penalty and interest will be charged for the month of March).

DEF_MONTH_END: This determines when the 5% or 8% deferral interest ends.  If set to Current, the interest stops accruing as of the day after the grace period for the deferral ends, but only if the client preference KEEP_DEFERRAL_PCT_INTACT (see below) is also set to N. Payments made after the deferral end date will use the original delinquency date to determine penalty and interest. If set to Next (the default), the interest is no longer accrued as of the first of the month following the month in which the deferral ends.

CALCULATE_LEVY_YEAR: If this is set to a prior year, you cannot recalculate levy for the current or future year. You can make the changes on the Account Master screens, but the Save and Calculate button will be disabled. You can use the Save (F10) button but this will not recalculate the levy.

DEF_SHOW_EXEMPTION: If set to Y (the default), a $0.00 DEF exemption will be displayed for the tax year of the data that is either in an appraisal district file or on the Account Master screen.  If a deferral end date exists, the exemption is removed, even if the account is within the 180 day grace period for payment without penalty. If set to N, the exemption is not created.

DEF_END_DATE_INCLUDES_180: Set to Y if the deferral end date includes the grace period of the 180 days before delinquent penalty and interest begin to accrue. Set to N if the date given by the appraisal district does not include the 180 days and the system needs to add them before penalty and interest begin. The default is N.

DEF_ATTY_FEE_START: Set to 180 to begin attorney fees at the 181st day after the deferral end date or 360 to start them at the 361st day. The default is 180 days. The default settings will retain the current 180 day grace period after the end date for penalty and interest and attorney fees that the system has been using. The setting for DEF_END_DATE_INCLUDES_180 is considered when calculating the number of days.

SYNC_DEFERRAL_DATES_FROM_PROD: (for True Automation appraisal district file loads only) Set to Y to copy deferral dates from the production tables to the CAD tables on stage 8. Set to N to keep the deferral dates from the files.

CHARGE_ATTY_FEE_ON_DEFER_INT: Set to Y to charge attorney fees after the deferral period + 180 days on the 8% interest that accrued during that time if if KEEP_DEFERRAL_PCT_INTACT is also set to Y. Set to N (the default) to not charge attorney fees on accrued, but unpaid deferral interest.

LOAD_ONLY_LATER_TAX_DEF_DATES: Set to N (the default) to keep normal deferral processing. Set to Y to update the tax deferral start and end date only if the appraisal district provides more recent dates or if the deferral dates in TCS are blank and the appraisal district gives a start and/or end date. If the appraisal district sends a more recent deferral start date and a blank deferral end date, in TCS the deferral start date is updated and both the deferral end date and the mail date are removed. The mail date is also updated if the deferral end date is updated. However, if the appraisal district's deferral end date is before what is in TCS, the end date and the mail date are not changed in TCS.

KEEP_DEFERRAL_PCT_INTACT: Set to N (the default) if after the deferral end date plus 180 day grace period, the tax office wants to charge penalty, interest, and attorney fees that would have accrued had no deferral existed.

If this preference is set to Y, the amount of deferral interest accrued during the deferral period remains due and normal 33.01 penalty and interest are calculated starting with the month following the 180th day. The amount due shown on the Account Status screen and on the tax office web site is the sum of three distinct calculation periods: before the deferral start date, during the deferral period plus grace period, and after the grace period ends. Click here to see a spreadsheet of sample calculations.

 If this is set to Y, penalty is calculated based on the assumption that the 'due date' is the first of the month following the grace period. The client preference CHARGE_6PCT_PENALTY_AFTER_JULY is considered in this case. The penalty never is more than 12%, which can be the sum of the penalty percentage from the period before the deferral start date (for ex., 9%) and the percentage after the grace period (for the same ex., a maximum of 3%).

If this preference is set to Y and attorney fees were charged before the deferral began, those remain due, but no additional attorney fees are assessed during the deferral period. After the grace period ends, attorney fees also include any penalty and interest amounts that are assessed on levy due since the month following the end of the 180 days. Additionally, if CHARGE_ATTY_FEE_ON_DEFER_INT is set to Y, attorney fees assessed after the grace period ends also consider any unpaid deferral interest.

  1. From the Main Menu, click the Account Master () button or select Update, then Account Master, or click the Go To drop-down list and select Account Master.  The Account Master Summary screen will appear.
  2. If the account has carried over from a previous screen, go to step 3.  

    If the Account Number field is blank, enter the account number, press F8, then go to step 3.

    If you need to enter a different account number, press F7, key in the new account number, press F8, then go to step 3.

Note: If you don't know your account number, see Locating an Account.

  1. If you need to view the summary of an account for a prior year, use the scroll bar on the right side of the screen. A popup will appear just before you get to the last year available if additional years have been archived (moved to a different part of the database to allow faster querying in the main database).
  2. If you want to view a year that is not available on the screen, follow the steps below:
  1. Click Prior Year(s).  
  2. Click Prior Year Rebuild
  3. Click Prior Year(s)
  4. Using the drop-down list, select the year to view.  The list contains only those years that have been archived. If you want to see another year, key in that year in the year field.
  5. Click OK. The Account Master Summary screen will display.

WARNING: If you want to view data for a paid account in a prior year and your tax office has had its paid account data loaded into ACT's archive tables, the property values and jurisdictions for the rebuilt year will be inserted. Please check them for accuracy. Enter any exemptions into either the Account Master Summary or Special Exemptions tabs.  Remember to return to the Account Master Summary screen and press F10 (Save).

For unpaid prior year accounts and paid accounts that haven't been put into the archive tables, zeroes will show in the value fields for the year you rebuild if the client preference POPULATE_EQUAL_VALUES is set to N.  If the preference is set to Y, the property values will be populated with data from the Receivable and Property Value screens.   If no values exist for that year in those screens, $0.00 values will be inserted. Please check the values for accuracy.  Remember to enter any exemptions, then press F10 (Save).  

A Receivable is not created unless it existed in the archive tables or in the regular production tables before doing this Prior Year rebuild.

  1. Click the Owner Detail tab.  The Owner Detail screen will appear.
  2. To add the beginning deferral date, enter the Defer Start Date given by the appraisal district; this must be entered in the current year record. (For military deferrals, use the Military Defer Start Date field.)
  3. To add the ending deferral date, enter the Defer End Date given by the appraisal district; this must be entered in the current year record. (For military deferrals, use the Military Defer End Date field.)
  4. To change a deferral date, enter the new date in either the Defer Start Date or the Defer End Date field (or Military Defer Start and End Dates).  
  5. Click the Summary tab.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Click OK to the confirmation message.