I just left City Tax Court with my son, I have never seen such a mockery of the court system. Let me explain.
My son, who is now 20, was charged with tax evasion in the City of Bucyrus for the following years…. 2012, 2013, and 2014. In 2012 my son was 16 and was living with his father at the time. He moved back with me in 2013 and has lived with me in Marion since. So he receives a court notice about having to appear in court for these taxes. He attends two-three pretrials regarding this 2012 case. He had another one scheduled for a certain date and he showed up to court on the wrong date, and subsequently a bench warrant was issued for his arrest for failure to appear.
He was unaware of this warrant until he was pulled over in Marion and the officer that pulled him over advised him of the warrant, but said he was out of the jurisdiction so he could not arrest him. Within a couple days of finding this out we head out to Bucyrus to sort this all out.
We first go the City Income Tax office and explain what is going on. She proceeds to tell us that he is also being charged with 2013 and 2014.
I ask her, “Minors have to file city income taxes?”
She informs me that they do not. So I ask why does he have charges for 2012 and 2013 then, not to mention, he didn’t even live in Bucyrus in 2013 and 2014. She then asks for his license to verify his age and tells us that those cases will be dismissed, but we will need to bring in verification that he lived in Marion in 2014.
At that point she notices the address on his license which is his Marion address and sees that it was issued in February of 2014. In light of this she informs us that he is not responsible for any of the charges that were levied against him. She then tells us to take a paper (that verifies that documentation was given to prove he is not responsible) over to Municipal Court.
So we head directly over there to provide the courts with proof that he did not have to file City Income Taxes in the City of Bucyrus. Cindy, the clerk on duty, informs us that he still has to appear for his court date, his charges will be dismissed, but he will still have to pay court costs?
Say what? Court costs for YOUR mistake and negligence? She tells me that it’s not HER mistake and since a bench warrant was issued there will be costs. So we went to court today for pretrial. We show the Prosecutor the papers verifying that he was not responsible to file income taxes in the City of Bucyrus for those years. He states that they will all be dismissed, but my son has to pay $188 in court costs.
What in the he**? Are you kidding me? He has to pay court costs for YOUR mistake?
At NO time during the other pretrials did they ask for any identification to verify age. At NO point in time did they make a statement announcing that if under 18 years of age you are NOT required to file City Income Tax. At NO time since finding out they made a mistake were any apologies of inconvenience made. The ONLY thing they wanted was the $188 in court costs.
So I ask the Prosecutor how do we fight these court costs? He says we have to set it for a hearing/pretrial to have case heard.
Now here’s the kicker, there were a couple of people ahead of us that had the same charges against them, but had since filed their taxes (because they were REQUIRED to do so), and since they had now filed them, they dismissed their case with NO COURT COSTS!!!
Really City of Bucyrus? Someone who was actually at fault gets NO court costs, but someone who was wrongfully charged has to pay $188 in court costs? So now we have another court date to go back to court to fight these court costs.
How is this right? How is this even legal?
I can tell you one thing, if the City of Bucyrus does not make this right, and still charges my son the $188 in court costs, it will be all in pennies. This is completely unjust and sickening!
Janelle Shelby
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