Possibly call your district's state legislator's office. They should have contact information that is not available to the public.

Is the Keystone office to far to drive to?

Not sure, but I think Keystone Collections Group is too far to visit easily, if they even have a brick and mortar office. After talking with several people I now suspect they use part time phone workers, perhaps out of their private houses and that would explain why so many different phone calls and different answers, most times they just identify as Keystone Collections, do not give any more details. According to their web site "Servicing 900+ School Districts and Municipalities in 38 Pennsylvania Counties" - I think PA has 67 counties total.

Today I talked with one of the people at our local borough office and she said she would try to find out what is going on, but had doubts she could get any more than I did. It is ironic because the first thing everyone says is contact Keystone Collections if you have any tax questions. If the local borough office does not respond in a couple days I can try the State Representative for our area.

municipality or government agency that claims that you owe them money.

The Federal Trade Commission regulates collection companies. You might call or write to them. Also, your state attorney general's office/consumer protection bureau may be able to assist you.

Keystone Collections does it all, collect, administer, decide and enforce. They take care of the records for who pays and who does not pay, saving local governments/schools etc money. Most places in our area have found it cheaper to allow that organization to take care of any and all taxes owed and collected. They bill taxpayers for local taxes, occupational taxes etc. and also take care taxes not paid. I do not think the local municipalities even know who is paying and who is not - all is taken care of by Keystone Collects. You could say it is a voluntary privatization of local government for taxes , local tax collectors do less and less. They send an invoice, before a tax is due, you get discounts if you pay early, pay the full amount or if you miss a certain date, pay a penalty. I am not sure what all happens after that, we always pay early to get the discount.

The problem is if their system makes a mistake as they are doing now with my wife, failing to create the invoice that has both per capita and occupation taxes. They say No invoice means she does not owe anything but we know she did not yet pay this year's per capita taxes for our local borough, we are exempt from the occupational taxes on the invoice because we are both retired, but still required to pay the per capita tax. I was hoping to get it fixed before it becomes a more serious problem.

incompetence or neglect. The amount could be loss of credit, interest, stress or whatever. Max it out to the limit ... N.J. is $3000.

Small claims cases are usually handled by mail.

That will get their attention.

Since the local government agreed to privatize, attend a meeting of the local town council. Contact the town business administrator. Letter to local newspaper (if there is one left in business).