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Residents have started getting reimbursements for credit card service fees for using their credit card to pay for vehicle registration, property tax, driver’s license and others in fiscal year 2025 through the Department of Revenue and Taxation’s online portals, myguamtax.com and pay.guam.gov. The credit card convenience fee waiver, however, ended at the end of fiscal 2025 on Sept. 30. This means starting Oct. 1, individual payers making tax- and non-tax-related payments to GovGuam this fiscal year have again been charged processing or convenience fees when they use their Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express credit cards, and other pin-based debit cards. But for fiscal 2025 transactions, reimbursements have started. Fiscal 2025 reimbursements started showing up in individuals’ bank accounts this week, DRT spokesperson Carlina Charfauros told the Pacific Daily News. The department received several inquiries about email notices about the reimbursement, she said. DRT encourages consumers to verify the credit card convenience fee listed in the email against the corresponding amount shown in their bank account statements. The fee detailed in the email should match the credited amount on the bank statement, the department said. The reimbursement follows the enactment of a bill that eliminated credit card fees for individual transactions, including vehicle registration and renewal, property tax payments, driver’s licenses and Guam identification cards processing, and individual income tax payments, for fiscal year 2025. Business transactions were not covered by the credit card convenience fee waiver and should not expect reimbursements for transactions made with the Treasury of Guam and DRT. For more information, contact DRT’s Call Center at pinadmin@revtax.guam.gov or phone (671) 475-1840/1841. The Department of Administration earlier said the amount of the credit card convenience fee is between 1-1/2% and 3% of the payment total for individual taxpayers. For non-tax payments, the fee would be from $2.45 to $4.45 per credit card transaction of up to $150, DRT earlier said. For transactions over $150, it would be 2.75% of the amount to be paid. Emails sent DRT on Wednesday said emails have been sent from LexisNexis Payments, service@lexisnexis.com, with the subject line, “Lexis Nexis Payment Solutions — Notification of Credit Request.” These notifications inform residents about reimbursements for the credit card convenience fees incurred on individual transactions previously processed. Lexis Nexis is an external vendor that the government of Guam contracted to handle payment transactions. Service fee reimbursements are being issued to consumers who made payments between Nov. 6, 2024 and Jan. 22, 2025, DRT said. Another round of reimbursements for online transactions made between Jan. 23, 2025 and April 2025 will be issued at a later date; however, no specific estimates have been provided to DRT. Pandemic-era program At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the administration started waiving the credit card convenience fee as in-person transactions were limited. That was supposed to be a brief waiver period but Adelup said the fee waiver improved GovGuam revenue collection so it kept on extending the program. The governor used more than $31 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds to cover the credit card fee waiver. When the ARP funds dried up, the governor asked senators to appropriate local funds for it. Sen. Joe San Agustin introduced a supplemental budget bill that included an appropriation of $4.7 million for the sole purpose of paying for the credit card fees for individual payers in fiscal 2025. Because that legislation was enacted several weeks after the start of fiscal 2025, a number of residents were already charged the fee and they’re just now being reimbursed.
