Western Caroline Supervisor Jeff Black
By Sarah Vogelsong
CP Reporter
Delinquent taxpayers may soon face the disapproval of not just the county but also their fellow citizens.
On Tuesday night, the Board of Supervisors decided to move forward with publishing in the local newspapers the names of people who have failed to pay their personal property taxes between 2008 and 2013.
The Board had discussed this possibility for the past several meetings but without coming to a conclusion. Currently, the bill for delinquent personal property taxes for these five years amounts to $1.6 million, not including taxes owed by people who have been declared deceased, who have filed for bankruptcy, or who have set up a formal, signed payment plan with the county.
The current list of delinquents includes 4,094 names. Of these, 1,475 owe less than $100 in tax. County treasurer Beth Curran told the Board that state law prohibits the publication of the name of anyone who owes less than $20.
The Treasurer’s Office has attempted to collect this money in a variety of ways, including working with the Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold vehicle registration, placing tax liens against wages or bank accounts, and offsetting income tax refunds until the county receives the money it is owed. Warning letters have also been sent to delinquents every six months. The most recent letter notified recipients that if they did not pay, there was the possibility that their name would be listed in the paper.
“She’s given them ample warning,” Western Caroline Supervisor Jeff Black said.
Although the supervisors agreed that the names should be published, they disagreed over how many of the 4,094 should be printed.
“I think you’ve got to print them all. I think it sends a message loud and clear,” said Black. “Paying your taxes is not an option. … It’s a responsibility.”
Madison Supervisor Wayne Acors
Madison Supervisor Wayne Acors, however, sounded a note of caution about the expense of printing the full list in the Caroline Progress and the Free-Lance Star.
“It may not be a bad idea to look at (printing) maybe the top 100 or the top 200 to see what response you get,” he said. “Nobody wants to see their name in their paper saying they owe tax dollar debt.”
The supervisors also discussed the possibility of printing the top 500, although Black argued that if the county was going to print the names, establishing an arbitrary cutoff for whose name would or would not be printed was unfair.
“To me, it’s discrimination,” he said. “You’ve got to go all in.”
Ultimately, the supervisors asked Curran to reach out to the newspapers to determine how many names would fit on a page and how much each page would cost. The Board will then decide at its Sept. 9 meeting how many names will be published.
No names will be published for at least the next month.
At the end of the discussion, Black requested that Curran put together a list of real estate tax delinquents so that the Board could move to address that problem in a similar fashion.