A Denver citizen recently inquired why he has to send his Denver taxes to a Dallas, Texas address. And the post box in Dallas has three 6's in the address, so maybe the devil has something to do with it.

The city's bank is JP Morgan Chase. Since November of 2009, the majority of sales, use and excise tax payments sent to the city go to Chase which has located its processing center for large payment volume processing in Dallas, Texas. Ready for more confusion: Chase changed to Texas because the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, with a branch located here in Denver, decided to clear checks in Dallas and would no longer perform the function in Denver.

From Denver's Treasury fact sheet on this subject:

"Why has the City implemented this change to having my payments being mailed out of state?

The City bank processes payments in Dallas, Texas. Previously, payments were mailed to a Denver post office box, and a courier transported the payments to the airport where they were flown for processing in Texas. The payments were returned to Denver after processing via air transportation. In order to streamline and reduce the costs of getting the payments to the location for processing, payments mailed through the U. S. Post Office can be received directly at the processing plant faster and more efficiently. This also diminishes the possibility of a box of payments being misplaced or other delays in accurately crediting payments to appropriate accounts."

The fact sheet from Treasury mentions that occupational taxes are included in this new process, but property taxes are not covered at this time. I wonder if the Auditor's Office should look into this process to see if Chase Bank sending everything to its new processing location in Dallas, Texas really is the best business practice for citizens and the city?

Where's Andy Jackson, now that we may really need him? Even our public electric and gas utility has places you can pay your bill around town. You wonder why I voted against Branch Banking when I served in the Colorado General Assembly?