Should it become law, a bill sent out of the Senate Financial Services Committee Wednesday would require future annual real property tax notices to list other taxes and user fees owed the government.
The bill also mandates personal notification of delinquency, an increase to existing rules requiring notice in the papers, sending of notice by certified mail and attempting to contact the taxpayer. The goal is to give taxpayers more information and more notice of delinquency, so both the taxpayer and government are better prepared to pay.
"This is so we can prevent what happened a couple of years ago, with the tax assessors sending out notices for arrearages going back 10 years and more," said Sen. Louis Hill, the bill’s sponsor.
Property tax assessment and collection is done by a division of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Delbert Hewitt, the lieutenant governor’s chief of operations, said putting back taxes and fees "should have been standard practice in the past and should be a part of any credible property tax billing and collection system."
The V.I. Waste Management Authority endorses the bill because it gives them another tool to increase collection of delinquent sewer fees. Sewer fees only pay for a portion of the costs of running and maintaining the sewer system, said WMA Chief Financial Officer Deandre Atwell. Increasing WMA’s ability to collect fees would "enhance the authority’s ability to pay for the wastewater operation," Atwell said. "This would ultimately reduce our reliance on the general fund."
WMA would prefer the bill allocated payments of interest and penalties to both public sewer fees and real property tax accounts, rather than only real property accounts, Atwell said.
The bill would amend a section of existing law dealing with attaching tax liens and seizure of property for nonpayment of taxes, prompting many questions about how often that happens and whether this new bill would make it easier to seize homes. The bill only adds notice requirements and will not make it easier for a person’s home to be taken for nonpayment of taxes.
"Really, very few properties have been sold in a lot of years," Hewitt said.
Acting Tax Assessor Bernadette Williams said the last tax sale she knew about took place in 1994.
The Property Tax Division is finishing up the process of auditing and calculating delinquent property taxes dating all the way back to 1974, Hewitt said.
The 2008 property tax bills will be the first to include the delinquent tax information, he said.
"What property tax bills can we expect to see in 2010?" asked Sen. Neville James. The 2006 property tax bills will be issued in July and 2007 bills by December or January, Hewitt said. The 2008 bills should go out in 2011, he said.
Voting to send the bill on for consideration in the Rules Committee were: Sens. Neville James, Wayne James, Terrence "Positive" Nelson, Nereida Rivera-O’Reilly and Michael Thurland. Sens. Carlton "Ital" Dowe and Celestino White were absent.
