A bad address for a TxTag account cost a Cedar Park man hundreds in toll fines

Andrew Hoeft, 57, is trying to outwit the toll road.
What he pays to drive on the toll road with his pickup — roughly $75 a month — would be doubled if he pulled his tractor-trailer on the tolls all day. He has a TxTag sticker issued by the Texas Department of Transportation, which operates and maintains the toll road on State Highway 45 in Central Texas.
Driving his truck costs roughly $1.27 per toll plaza, depending on which direction he is going. But if he drives his truck and attaches his tractor-trailer, which has two more axles, it would cost $2.54, according to the TxTag website.
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So each day, before and after work, he does what he describes as the switch.
In the morning, he heads southeast in his pickup from his home in Cedar Park, a suburb of Austin 180 miles southwest of Dallas, to Round Rock, where he keeps his tractor-trailer in front of a storage facility he owns. This way he can avoid paying toll fees for a tractor-trailer on his truck to and from home. His morning drive on the toll road takes roughly 20 minutes. It would take longer and be less predictable if he instead used side streets, he said.
He then connects his tractor-trailer, which contains his equipment, materials and tools, and drives all over Central Texas to visit customers. The father of three grown daughters runs Rubber Duck Refinishing, a company that specializes in installation of cabinets and bathroom surfaces.
At one point, he didn’t update the address on an expired credit card with TxDOT. The mistake cost him hundreds of dollars in penalties, he said. For each nonpayment violation, TxDOT charges a $4 penalty, according to its website.
“That doesn’t seem right,” Hoeft said.
The TxTag system has been plagued with a number of billing issues over the years, according to multiple news reports and TxDOT news releases. In 2018, KXAN Austin, which has reported on TxTag billing problems and vendor operations problems for years, found that more than 2 million toll accounts had been sent to collections and more than $1 billion in extra charges had been added to those accounts.
Three years later, in 2021, TxDOT announced problems with an upgrade to its electronic toll system had overcharged millions of Central Texans. That year, it refunded $11.7 million in overcharges, TxDOT officials announced in a news release.
Austin has several toll roads managed by TxDOT. In addition, several others are operated by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, which charges a $15 late fee per invoice. After 120 days of nonpayment, the charges could climb into the hundreds of dollars, according to the CTRMA website. Those charges would include unpaid fees, unpaid tolls and the nonpayment fees.
Hoeft says he has to be mindful to check his receipts and bills and to keep track of his credit card expiration dates to avoid penalties.
“I don’t like it, you know, the onus is on me,” Hoeft said.