The number of delinquent motor vehicle tax payers has dropped by half in recent months, according to the late-year tally by the tax collector’s office.
Delinquents have dropped to 1,300 from 3,000 in August, after bills became due in July, said Jane Berendsen-Hill, the tax collector.
The next delinquent notices will go out in February, and then the overdue taxes will go to a bill collector, Berendsen-Hill said.
“What prompts them to come in at this point is they need to register a motor vehicle,” Berendsen-Hill said.
It’s not a big deal, overall, because the delinquent taxes total only about $250,000 of a $125-million budget. About $6 million is collected in vehicle taxes, over about 21,000 separate bills, she said.
“This is not atypical, and a little better than usual right now,” Berendsen-Hill said.
First Selectman Rudy Marconi said the built-in mechanism that causes taxes to be paid late is the fact that nobody can register a car without paying them. “You have to look at it in its own right. You don’t pay your taxes, you can’t register your car,” Marconi said. “There is a built-in incentive for people to pay up.”
Berendsen-Hill believes a lot of the tax debtors are people who moved out of state and haven’t cleared up their local business. The bill collectors will find them, wherever they are, in March, she said.
The town regularly collects 98.7% of property taxes, according to Dave Ulmer, chairman of the Board of Finance.
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