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Calm down.
Call them.
Calmly explain what has happened and the situation.
They WILL help you work something out.
They ARE NOT monsters out to get your mom.

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Edit: Emphasis

We had a lot of flooding a few years ago for two years in a row. I was in Jackson, TN at the time. My house was fine, but down the road a bit, houses were underwater.

I had a friend who had just bought a house and put flood insurance. Then he got a note from the city/county/state? that said that his house was no longer deemed a flood-plain. So he removed his flood insurance.

6 months later, a re-investigation deemed that they were flood-plains. But they just didn't tell anybody. But in some official public registry (which we all read every week, right? :D), it was so deemed. A few months after that, the floods hit and they got spectacularly screwed.

I don't know when the Texas floods were, but they were probably 2008. I drove past a lot that was going to flood a week or two before it flooded. Then I saw it all flooded on the news. It was humbling.
Where are you living? Tons of places allow late filing if you have hardships. If you mom needs you to do it, that would probably count as a hardship.

P.S. And if it's not her first time, then many places allow late filing for refiling.

Your life is worth a lot more than a few thousand dollars. As Licurg said, get in touch with a tax lawyer or the tax office and see if there's something that can be done. Despite how cynical we all are about the tax man, sometimes they surprise you. So don't panic yet. Be calm, get some info and professional advice. You never know.

I'm an accountant (or was before becoming disabled) so I know all of this.

But this is different because it's not the ordinary "tax man" in the sense of income, employer, or sales taxes. This is real estate taxes, and it is local government (not state or federal) and whole different ballgame.

I've already called and been told basically sorry for your bad luck. Only the commission of the revenue can intervene now and while I will plea his office to do so, I have no weight, nothing, on which to base my plea on. Other than plain old human compassion. And while I am very aware that the "big bad tax man" is a fallacy (you wouldn't believe how easy it is to get the IRS and/or state governments to work with you regarding tax issues-in fact I never had a single client who didn't get positive cooperation from them) when you get to this stage, where it's local government, and where there's no real argument to make or anyone to make it to, my faith in this person having some plain old human compassion when the county gets 90% of it's revenues from real estate taxes is almost nil.

That sucks that it doesn't go well in the local arena. It seems that that's where the most compassion should come from. If things get really rough, we'll all drive down and picket. Because it's really ridiculous to take all of a woman's money like that.

I hope that compassion finds you and your mom.

Time to find an attorney/real estate counselor who knows someone in county, who knows someone..., etc.
Bet you can get it done if you keep at it.
I've battled our stupid county a few times and come out OK.

I just now (between my last post and this one) got a call from the Commissioner of the Revenue's office, and the lady told me to go ahead and send a letter to him and include the late form. She said she couldn't promise anything, but that was all I had as far as recourse was concerned. Send a letter and plea for compassion.

So, I'll hope they have compassion for my mother too. She doesn't deserve this because of me. But I don't have much faith, and the lady didn't exactly sound reassuring.

EDIT: Can I do a letter on notepad? I don't even have Word anymore because all of my other computers are on the mend right now, and nothing on this laptop. Seems like you can type anything you want, there's just no formatting stuff built in I guess. Notepad should do the trick.

Actually, just the fact that they called you is reassuring.
Keep at them, squeaky wheel and all that.....

don't say something like that! money leaves and then come back... money is just paper. Shit happens but get courage and live without guilty. When you lose, allways win something important: experience!

come on, don't feel bad! today can be a great day anyway! :)

sorry for my bad english

Yes, but you a pay a fine if you havent filed and paid a percentage. I am assuming of course he is speaking of business taxes as April 1st would have been the quarterly deadline and that the extra 7k or so is in fact a penalty, not an adjustment.


Edit: Opps, didnt notice this was already addressed.

You may well have WordPad on it, which will let you format text etc.

Assuming Windows 7 or higher just go into the Start Menu and type wordpad to find it, or press Windows+R to bring up a Run box and type wordpad in there.

* DING * Winning suggestion, was just going to post the same.

As for your dire straits, don't despair until the final verdict is in. And as a late recourse if things don't turn out (but hopefully they will), you could try to engage your local press on the issue. Taxes are a hot-button issue and you could possibly get some press about this snafu that would result in a more favourable negotiation. But as I say, wait first until the verdict comes back from the assessor. It may be far less grim than you first anticipated.

I agree with most of the other people, I know it looks bleak, but you can't sweat it just yet. Its not certain until all your avenues are exhausted.

As for useful avenues the only one I have to add is send a note to your congress person. I know many people who have gotten their congress person to lean a little bit on the state side of things and have many things get better.

Dude, I've forgotten to do my Federal taxes for almost a year once and still got both the last year's taxes back and the year that I was filing for as well. Relax, go see a tax lawyer and quit freaking out.