In many cases, not charging a fee is a common sense way to save other costs. The California DMV has allowed registration renewal online via credit card with no fee for several years. 3 minutes on the web, nothing to send in, and a few days later the new stickers arrive. I'm happy and resent them less. And for them, nobody to open and type in info to process a check, no clerk to wait on me in the office, etc; that overhead savings has to come close to paying any credit card costs.

If only the county would be so enlightened for the property tax bill...