Campbell County is going paperless in hopes of modernizing the county’s business licensing and tax filing process.
The new software will allow online tax filing and payment among Campbell County businesses. The new agreement will provide the county with the initial implementation and development of business licensing and tax software and a one-year annual subscription to the cloud through GovOS/DLT Solutions for $436,510.
The county’s current software is roughly 10 years old and will no longer be supported by Microsoft, which led to the new agreement.
Campbell County Administrator Matt Elberfeld said this is a big step for the county.
“It’ll be a pretty monumental shift for the business community in the county in a positive way,” Elberfeld said.
Businesses can register in the county portal and have their own account. Aside from online tax filing and payments, they will also be able to make automated clearing house payments, make credit card payments, and give access to an accountant or third-party preparer.
Elberfeld said the county had received a lot of requests for online filing and payments. He said this new system would also make things much more efficient for staff.
“It will check the math automatically; it will make sure that you’ve done all the calculations right,” Elberfeld said. “Taxpayers can manage their own overpayments so they can log into the system and request a refund and automatically apply it to next year’s return, not have to call the office to do that.”
He said they also wouldn’t have to pay for postage and would no longer print and mail thousands of tax returns several times a year.
Additionally, the system is cloud-hosted, which means the vendor, GovOS/DLT Solutions, is responsible for data security involving personally identifiable information or personal data, not the county’s information technology department. Information will also be backed up at an off-site database.
Elberfeld said Boone County had utilized this same software for roughly nine months.
“We’ve repeatedly checked in with them. It’s going well,” Elberfeld said. “Of course, there are always bumps in implementation. We’ve learned from them. They’ve told us what they would do differently, what they would do the same.”
He added that almost 80% of Boone Counties’ payroll taxpayers have already utilized the online system.
The new online system is optional for Campbell County businesses. Elberfeld said some people like to come into the office and fill out the returns by hand, and that service will still be available.
Questions regarding the system change can be directed to Campbell County Occupational Tax Manager Brett Burcham.