Alna selectmen plan to hear from Treasurer Aaron Miller on April 22 about where the town stands with its payroll tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service. Miller told the board on April 8 that the IRS has asked for more information; he planned to meet with IRS staff, he said.

Miller and other town officials said the matter involved payments that Miller was making quarterly last year, but that should have been made monthly.

On April 14, Miller said he believes the town is up-to-date on its 2014 federal and state tax payments. He is currently working on the first tax payments for 2015, he said.

Miller said he is seeking, and expects to receive, an abatement for the town on IRS penalties from 2014. The extra expense of fines would be a hardship for a town Alna’s size, Miller said in interviews and in a January letter to the IRS.

“Unfortunately, I assumed that by filing taxes on a quarterly basis, the town was meeting its obligations to the federal government,” Miller writes on Jan. 12. “For this, I sincerely apologize.”

The letter seeks a $1,306 abatement for penalties and interest for the second quarter of 2014 and asks that, if any are issued for the third and fourth quarters, they be waived, as well. “We are a small community with limited resources,” Miller writes. “Such fees would result in a hardship for our town. It would be a shame for the taxpayers to bear this burden based on my oversight.”

The agency responds in a March 20 letter to the town. The letter states that, to consider the town’s request, the agency needs a statement of reasonable cause for why it should be granted; and a completed form on tax liability.

Miller said the mistakes on payments’ timing would not have occurred if the town had had the same software as Whitefield, where he also serves as treasurer. The TRIO software generates a payment for town officials to carry out, he said. “I’m used to the system that spits out this information,” he told selectmen.

At Alna’s annual town meeting in March, voters approved $10,000 in upgrades for the town office’s hardware and software; on April 8, selectmen discussed getting TRIO.

But Second Selectman Melissa Spinney offered to do work that could help in using the existing software instead.

“I’d be willing to do anything to save (the money),” she said.

Selectmen agreed to take Spinney up on the offer.

“There’s no harm in that,” Third Selectman Douglas Baston said. “TRIO will be there if we need it a year from now.”

Board members asked Miller to report back to them about the taxes at the board’s next meeting, April 22, after he has met with the IRS.

Miller later said his meeting with the IRS was set for April 15 in Augusta.

Since the April 8 selectmen’s meeting, Spinney and Miller have sent each other a series of emails. In them, Miller provides tax information and asks that training funds be used to have Alna’s prior treasurer Honora Jordan teach him how the town’s software facilitates the tax payments; Spinney responds that the board will take up Miller’s request at its next meeting.

Spinney’s emails seek further tax information, and inform Miller that First Selectman David Abbott wants to be able to enter payments on the selectmen’s warrant.

“(Abbott) says that ‘this has to happen, from now on, so we can keep better track of what’s going on,’” Spinney states in the emails Miller provided to the Wiscasset Newspaper.

According to one document Miller provided regarding state taxes, he is disputing $23 in interest and $159 in penalties stemming from the tax period of January 2014 to March 2014. Miller’s petition for reconsideration to Maine Revenue Services is dated April 13.

In other business April 8, the board agreed to get a $500,000 tax anticipation note from Bath Savings, at eight-tenths of a percent interest. In 2014, the town took out one for $300,000, Town Clerk Amy Warner said. Another $200,000 was added to last year’s, but ended up not being needed, Warner said.

The board agreed to spend $2,000 on an outside appraisal of Central Maine Power’s Alna properties. Work by the same appraiser, William Van Tunein, led to an increase of millions of dollars in Whitefield’s values for CMP property, Miller said.

Warner reported that the planning board has agreed to draft a fireworks ordinance. In March, voters agreed to have either the planning board or a selectmen-appointed committee draft it, in time for residents to consider it at the 2016 annual town meeting.