We are North Texas tax collections specialists. We developed, from “scratch” and at high cost, a complex computer program specifically for processing delinquent tax accounts within the Denton County area. We incorporated our expertise from having performed tax collections work in Denton, Cooke, Collin, Smith, Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend Counties in developing the basic principles behind the program. We then adapted that program to accommodate the particular circumstances of taxpayers and the various Tax Offices in Denton, utilizing knowledge gained from working closely with Tax Office personnel.

We are capable of identifying any number of distinctive features and classes of delinquent accounts with our computer system. For this reason, if a report is required and you have some specific questions about the character and nature of your delinquency roll, we can in many instances provide you with a breakdown of the tax roll for ease of review. We encourage an open line of communication in order that we may assist in reducing superfluous paperwork that is unnecessary and unhelpful to you and results in wasted efforts on our part.

It is our objective to be there when and if you need us. If a personal appearance by your Tax Attorney would be helpful to field potential questions of members of the City Council or members of the public at upcoming meetings, workshops or public hearings, etc., just let us know. We can and shall be “on call”, on little or no notice, to address such needs and special circumstances. You will be a very important, “key” client to this firm, thus commanding the attention, access and service from us that such a position deserves. We strive to be sensitive to the ever- changing needs of our clients.

The aggressiveness, “competence” and commitment of the tax collections law firm is what defines a professional service in this field. The sensitivity and availability of resources to local taxpayers and taxing entity’s staff is the measure of superior personal service for your tax attorneys.

Considering the nature of our practice, wherein the taxing entity pays nothing for our services, there are important factors that differentiate Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. from the other Tax Collection firms:

1. We are the only Denton County law firm specialized and experienced in performing all tax collections services. All competitors, if maintaining a local “office”, either have no local tax attorneys in Denton or are local firms that farm out all substantive legal work, expertise procurement and collections control to non-local tax firms. We are one of only 23 (at last count) property tax specialty firms statewide. We developed all of our own software and are dependent on no one outside of Denton for our legal work.

2. Because collections enforcement is a personal, professional service directly interactive with large numbers of citizens of Denton, it is of critical import that cognizant tax attorneys are available to your taxpayers. Our attorneys and staff are located RIGHT HERE IN DENTON. We are one convenient location for the taxpayer to make payment, communicate with our tax advisors or attorneys and to resolve tax disputes. Therefore, any taxpayer, government official, city council member or administrator can get immediate, personal attention on any tax matter. No other competitor offers access to expert tax attorneys right here in Denton. We have total flexibility to accommodate any collections performance request made.

3. “Buying Denton” has meaning. Being a wholly local firm with strong commitments to Denton and North Texas, we have a strong personal stake in performing this contract in a superior manner. WE KEEP LOCAL TAX DOLLARS LOCAL. In that regard, we reinvest costs of collection services in Denton and North Texas, with a significant, unequalled economic impact. And finally, we contribute back to this community in a myriad of ways that would be lost with obtaining this professional service non-locally. Our competitors cannot in good faith say that they “Buy Denton”, or invest in Denton and North Texas the way Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. does.

4. Our attorneys are not “circuit riders” attempting to service taxing units around the state as our competitors do. Our competitors have all substantive cognizance, control and performance elsewhere and not in Denton. Since we are cognizant attorneys and are focused only on North Texas, we can work much more closely with delinquent taxpayers, including but not limited to, making pay-out arrangements and helping taxpayers to sort out the myriad of legal problems that often have caused the delinquency in the first place.

5. In the area of personal services, bigger is definitely not better. There is no substitution for local expertise, availability, knowledge and control versus phone banks and processing centers located in remote, centralized locations. Some of our largest competitors assign dozens, sometimes hundreds, of tax units to each tax attorney specialist. When we say local, we mean local.

6. The Texas Property Tax Code sets out the “rules of the game” for all tax collections services across our state. All Texas tax attorneys must operate under these rules. What sets one firm apart from another is the time and attention they give to their local accounts. All of our attention is focused here, not spread out all over the region or state. We have statewide experience without having to divert our attention to widespread, unrelated taxing units as do all other competing tax firms.

7. We have superior tax statements mailed to taxpayers encompassing all legal costs and fees due. Other tax attorneys’ statements only contain partial information, no court costs references, and sometimes no amounts at all. If court costs, filing fees, citation costs and the like are also due, the taxpayer is forced to find these out on their own. Not only does this impose an undue hardship on the average local taxpayer, this often results in a failure to pay the amounts not appearing on those statements. The result is that the Court will force a trial for court costs only.

8. It should be noted that because Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. also represents Denton Independent School District (since 1997), a tremendous level of efficiency and synergy exists in our collections program. Further, in dealing with taxpayer who cannot afford to pay all delinquent taxes at one time, the fact is that the taxpayer usually seeks to pay the lesser tax first (by far the City taxes and lesser than the school taxes on any given account). Because we represent both, with one phone call to the taxpayer we can make all arrangements to pay the City tax. The County’s current attorneys would have the opposite problem if they represented the City of Denton as the City of Denton would be the higher dollar taxing entity.

Our attorneys have legal background in all areas of law necessary to optimize tax collections and answer complex taxpayer questions such as in areas of real estate, business, bankruptcy and corporate law. We provide “turn-key” collections enforcement. We have even authored tax legislation and testified before the Texas Legislature regarding property taxes, appraisal caps, revenue caps and other issues. We can and will continue this service for Denton and North Texas.

There is nothing in tax collections performance that Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. cannot do, have not already done for this area, and will continue to do better than any competing non local firm. We are the most aggressive, comprehensive tax collections firm providing service to North Texas. We have developed relationships with local courts, law enforcement investigators, real estate professionals, even leaders (who specialize in property tax lending). All of which gives Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. an enormous competitive advantage in services to Denton, Denton County and North Texas taxpayers. Although we have statewide experience in tax collections, we have chosen to concentrate our specialized tax collection services in Denton and North Texas.

This area has a track record with Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. We have demonstrated not only that we are capable of performing all requisite services for the Denton and North Texas area, but have done so at an exemplary level. The Denton and North Texas area has employed other tax attorneys in the recent past, and none have outperformed our firm. Being local attorneys, we have raised the bar on customer services, taxpayer interaction and taxpayer satisfaction, and have given back to our community both directly and indirectly.

Our collections services are unsurpassed in Denton County by any of our competitors, and so Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. deserves your tax business based on performance alone.

Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. is the only locally owned and operated law firm that specializes in tax collections services. We can appear and meet with staff, administrators, and council and other elected officials with little or no prior notice to answer detailed questions on your tax collections program.

As our other tax clients can attest, we have historically performed superior legal services at no cost to our taxing unit clients. We at Sawko & Burroughs, P.C. promise to continue to provide Superior Service, Superior Commitment and Superior Collections Rates.

Sincerely,
Sawko & Burroughs, P.C.

Mark A. Burroughs
Gregory J. Sawko
Cameron J. Cox

*For more information on our collection rates, methods of collections and how we approach property tax collections, you can contact Sawko & Burroughs P.C. directly at (940) 382-4357, or you can email us at tax@dentonlawyer.com.