One of our favorite topics here: Reeves County Supplemental/ Corrected Tax Statements! This time, they at least have one of the my wells on my statement. Another $6,752 for one well in SEC 237-238 for years 2020 and 2021. I guess there will be another statement for the second well. This one has entries for ESD #1 Fire District, ESD #2 Ambulance District, P-B-T ISD, RCGWCD (RC Groundwater Conservation District), Reeves Co Hosp District and Reeves County. Any one else get one of these? The letter says that this is for properties not included on the appraisal roll or tax roll for 2020 and 2021. They have a new software vendor that prepared this bill. They blame all those statements with the wrong wells on the old software! At least we have a year to pay this one! Can’t wait to see the statement for well #2!
I just got off the phone with them. I received two bills for taxes I paid last July and this January. Both bills were indeed paid, so it appears to be a software issue.
The old Reeves Tax Office thread was closed so posting here.
The Reeves Tax Office continues to outdo itself. We just got a Supplemental Tax bill for 2020 and 2021 with a cover letter containing an explanation of the problems and assuring me, “These bills are correct.” Problem is first one I checked had already been paid last fall, and I suspect almost all are already paid. They even managed to bill one well two times.
The goat rodeo continues.
Yep, after looking more closely, I did pay this bill in August. It’s only for one well though so I wonder if they will send me a bill for the other one.
You need to check to see if this bill is not also a little lower than the ones paid last year and if Reeves owes you a refund. Have already seen some that are.
Mine was one penny lower! 
Danna-
Here is the link for the refund forms. Go for it!
I’ve been a quiet watcher of this forum for years - and I’m glad it’s here. Thanks to all who post. This is unbelivevable! I too, just received a bill for more taxes due from 2021-2022. So how are we to know if this is correct now if it wasn’t correct then? What kind of reassurance are we getting? Is there any way to get a review? An audit? It seems they just put in a new algorithym and click a button and new statements get mailed out to all that get mineral interests. I’m sure by the thousands in Reeves Co. alone. Only now with a cover letter (in bold, large print) that tries to convince us that it’s correct now. Amazing. What to do?
So what is the recommended procedure for the “corrected/correct” supplemental tax bills? What recourse does one have other than to just pay it and hope things get ironed out in the future? I’m wondering what everyone else is doing. I noticed on this latest SUPPLEMENT, I have until February of 2024 to pay without penalty…
David- I think these bills were for 2020-21 taxes. Check against your prior bills paid to look for duplicates of what you have already paid is the first step. We are seeing this billing is a duplicate of the supplemental billings that went out late last summer and most people would have paid.
On values, as far as the ability to protest them, I think they sent out notices before these supplemental bills came out last summer but again check your records.
Rule #1 in Reeves County - keep everything. It is still a mess.
Yes, I echo, keep everything. My file is huge! The supplemental bills I just received for 2020 and 2021 (for two different properties) were the SAME statements I paid on 7/21/22 (and I have copies of the cleared checks front and back!). The only difference is one statement is for 1 penny more! I wish I were like Danna and they owed me the penny. I don’t know if I can write a check for $0.01! I have never seen a bigger mess, and I feel sorry for owners who trust the “bold, large print” cover letter they receive and pay!
I am rattled to get so many incorrect bills. I am planning to wait until fall to make a payment- even if there are penalties. They caused this fiasco and it’s not acceptable. These are not small bills I want to make sure I only pay what is correct. They really should waive late fees Frustrated and furious
I agree, Brenda! And I think your postponing payment is a great idea, may do that myself. Especially during income tax time, too.
I did call Reeves County Tax Office today and they confirmed my payments for these supplemental bills from July, 2022. (I’m glad they are answering their phone with all the calls they are getting!) They also said not to worry about the penny–hope that is correct! They again blamed it on their new software vendor, whoever that is now.
The issue with duplicate tax assessments is to make sure that these bills are voided. You do not want the county to foreclose on your minerals for unpaid taxes when you already paid the taxes. Reeves seems to have re-sent the same tax bills for 2020 and 2021 as were already sent and paid in July 2022. These are not corrections to December error statements. Apparently the new software vendor went back to very old data and sent out new error statements and failed to cross-check it with paid tax receipts. Pull out your paid tax receipt from July 2022 and compare to new statement. Consider sending copies of both, with a letter stating that the taxes were already paid, by certified mail to Reeves Tax Assessor as a precaution move to protect your minerals. This is another example of the need to save all your data.
Thanks, TennisDaze, I am going to do exactly what you are recommending regarding certified mail and send them copies of my prior statements and proof of payment. And since one of the recent statements is for 1 cent more, I am going to enclose a check for $0.01!
A separate, but related problem, is that when well operators changed the tax system applied new Property ID numbers to those wells. That happened on wells operated by Luxe, that became Colgate, and MDC that became Maple Energy, and possibly others.
On those wells the “corrected” bills that recently arrived showed the new ID numbers Reeves had applied to the 2022 tax bills rather than the original ID’s that they had used in July, 2022 when they sent out the first batch of late billings covering Tax Years 2020 and '21.
Their system then didn’t apply the credits for payments that had been made last year under those original Property ID’s to the new ID’s they had set up and issued this new set of bills.
If you have wells where the ID’s changed and you plan to write the tax department like TennisDaze suggested the letter probably needs to include a reference to that problem with the the two sets of property ID’s.
People at Reeves County Appraisal District say the Tax Department is aware of these problems and the due dates on these latest bills were set a year in the future so there will be plenty of time for the duplicate bills to be cancelled. Sounds good, but that doesn’t mean royalty owners who aren’t aware of the problem won’t proceed on paying the bogus bills and then have a big problem trying to get credit for the duplicate payment.
That claim by Reeves County is nonsense. Recent bill was for exact list of wells, same RRC ID, same operators, same royalty decimal, same assessed value and same tax. The accompanying letter states absolutely that these wells were never taxed for 2020 and 2021. This is absolutely false as every well was taxed in July 2022. The letter then claims that these bills are part of December 2022 mess. But the December bills had nothing to do with the July statements. That was due to someone, whether in tax office or software provider office, doing a random mix of owner names and wells, so that the bills for a completely different set of late-addition wells went to the wrong people. No where in that letter is there any suggestion that Reeves is giving extra time so owners can review and figure out if this is a duplicate statement. It is a demand that the taxes be paid absolutely. Here is a direct quote “THESE BILLS ARE CORRECT.’’
I also received these new Supplemental / Corrected Tax Statement earlier this week. Luckily I had my receipt on file that I had paid them back in August 2022. I called Reeves County Tax Office and the nice lady blamed it on the NEW Software spitting out these notices and they have not caught up crediting most of these accounts. She said to recheck website in 10 days to see if everything has been credited properly. They keep you on your toes to say the least.
TennisDaze
If you thought I was trying to make excuses for the tax department I must have written that post very badly.
There is no doubt a lot of the current mess involves exactly what you are saying…the same wells, with the same ID’s, being billed twice, and the County claiming that isn’t the case…but there are also situations where duplicate bills were sent covering the same wells but using different ID’s because the operator of those wells changed between last July, when the first late billings went out, and the point this latest bunch of bills were mailed out.
That difference on those accounts in no way justifies any of this double billing being done, or those previous payments not being credited to the new property ID’s for those wells. It’s just added another layer of confusion on those particular accounts.
On the payment due date on the duplicate bills, in no way was I trying to say the tax people give that much time so they could correct their errors. What the person I talked to at the Appraisal District (not the tax office) had said was…the tax office now understands the problem (not when all these bills and letters were sent out), and the due dates being that far in the future at least gives some time for the tax office to get those bills straightened out.
But like I said earlier, that additional time isn’t going to help the folks who unknowingly pay these bogus duplicate bills and are then forced to try to get a refund out of that same messed up system.