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Tax collector employs technology to snare car tax deadbeats



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 10th 05, 06:41 AM
JJK
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Default Tax collector employs technology to snare car tax deadbeats

Be careful if you owe back taxes:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/09/e....ap/index.html

Tax collector employs technology to snare deadbeats

Wednesday, March 9, 2005 Posted: 1:44 PM EST (1844 GMT)

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- Sam Byers heard a commotion outside his
house, but by the time he got to the window his Ford Explorer was gone.

City marshals, armed with a new tool that photographs auto license plates
and instantly matches them against a tax scofflaw database, had towed Byers'
car right out of his driveway.

"That's like kidnapping your car," Byers, a 58-year-old truck driver said as
he stood, leaning on the crutches he got after a foot operation. Byers was
in a long line of people outside the New Haven tax collector's office who
were waiting to make delinquent payments so they could get their vehicles
back.

Cash-strapped New Haven is a pioneer in using the so-called BootFinder
system. The objective: snare people who haven't paid car taxes. (Connecticut
is among a handful of states where local governments levy annual fees,
typically a few hundred dollars per vehicle, based on the value of
residents' automobiles.)

New Haven officials are overjoyed at the results. They've towed about 1,800
cars and recovered more than $1 million in delinquent taxes since the
program began in September, including from people whose cars they removed
from a Wal-Mart parking lot.

But privacy advocates are concerned.

To them, BootFinder, originally developed to help police departments
identify stolen cars, represents yet another ominous step in government
surveillance of the citizenry.

The BootFinder system was first introduced for catching tax laggards by
Arlington County, Virginia.. So far, New Haven is the only other
municipality using it, though Connecticut's largest city, Bridgeport, is
among those considering a purchase.

The system is comprised of an infrared camera that rapidly scans license
plates and, connected to a laptop computer in the New Haven system, scours a
list of car tax delinquents. Previously, New Haven officials had to rely on
mailed notices and phone calls to try to collect overdue car taxes.

The car tax collection rate, at 80 percent before BootFinder, has now risen
to 95 percent, said C.J. Cuticello, New Haven's tax collector.

"I think the results are fantastic," he said. "We're going to continue it
until we exhaust every vehicle in New Haven."

Arlington County has had similar success, reaping about $100,000 in unpaid
car taxes and parking tickets since employing BootFinder despite not towing
tax delinquents' cars. Its treasurer, Frank O'Leary, says the county is
expanding the program this month to go after delinquent business and meals
taxes owed by restaurant delivery companies.

"We're expanding to include all the items we can think of," he said.

That is precisely what alarms privacy advocates such as Cedric Laurant,
policy counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information
Center.

"It's a very slippery slope into which the authorities may be tempted to
go," Laurant said. "You could use that technology to enforce any type of law
that requires people to file their taxes."

Privacy advocates fear BootFinder could lend itself to "function creep", in
which a technology intended for one purpose evolves into other uses.

Indeed, the president of the company that developed BootFinder, Andy Bucholz
of Alexandria, Virginia.-based G2 Tactics, says he is in talks that he hopes
will one day lead to a BootFinder-like system getting access to the National
Crime Information Center database.

Bucholz said the talks are addressing privacy and security.

Such issues were paramount to a number of states that pulled out of a
federally funded database program launched in 2002 called the Multistate
Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange -- "Matrix" for short -- that was
compiling billions of pieces of information on potential criminal suspects.

Laurant complained, additionally, that New Haven's towing regimen is
disproportionate punishment for relatively small tax bills.

Kathy Martone was doing her dishes one night last week when the city came to
get her Plymouth Neon, for which she owed $85 in taxes.

"I didn't know till I went to walk my dog," Martone said.

Motorists who have had their vehicles seized say they are given little
warning and must miss work to get their car back.

New Haven officials say, however, that delinquent taxpayers are given five
notices and warnings before their vehicles are seized.

In Bridgeport, Mayor John Fabrizi got a demonstration of BootFinder last
week and said that within five minutes he had identified three cars whose
owners owed a total of $900 in taxes.

"I was very impressed," Fabrizi said. "I feel we're going to go with the
program."

The city's tax collector, Bob Tetreault, says it is currently owed more than
$20 million in car taxes and its collection rate is below 70 percent, "which
is just embarrassing."

The BootFinder remains a work in progress.

O'Leary of Arlington County said it sometimes fails to work when lighting
conditions are variable due to cloudy weather. But he predicts big things
for the technology.

"I compare it to buying a plane from the Wright brothers 100 years ago,"
O'Leary said. "It's a very clever device. This thing will fly. Give it a
little time."


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  #2  
Old March 10th 05, 04:25 PM
N8N
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JJK wrote:
> Be careful if you owe back taxes:
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/09/e....ap/index.html
>
> Tax collector employs technology to snare deadbeats


<snip>

I don't know about CT, and it's been a few years since I lived in VA,
but wasn't the VA car tax supposed to have been phased out a couple of
years ago?

nate

  #3  
Old March 10th 05, 05:52 PM
Allen Seth Dunn
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Default


"N8N" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> JJK wrote:
>> Be careful if you owe back taxes:
>>
>> http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/09/e....ap/index.html
>>
>> Tax collector employs technology to snare deadbeats

>
> <snip>
>
> I don't know about CT, and it's been a few years since I lived in VA,
> but wasn't the VA car tax supposed to have been phased out a couple of
> years ago?
>


It never got phased out entirely. I think it got 80% to 90% of the way
phased out, and it has been maintained some. As of now, I think only people
with vehicles worth $20k or more actually pay anything, but you still have
to go through the movements or that type of thing that occured in the
message could still happen despite not actually owing anything IIRC..

> nate
>



  #4  
Old March 10th 05, 10:17 PM
The Office Jet
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Default

Well, I'd rather have them towing deliquents cars and getting money
that way than have my own taxes get raised.

 




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