8,000 residents get 'tax block' letters on cars

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 6/6/19

By JOHN HOWELL Kyla Jones stepped outside the tax collector's office and into the hallway of the former Greene School, which has served as city offices since the annex behind City Hall was forced to close because of a burst water pipe in January 2018.

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8,000 residents get 'tax block' letters on cars

Posted

Kyla Jones stepped outside the tax collector’s office and into the hallway of the former Greene School, which has served as city offices since the annex behind City Hall was forced to close because of a burst water pipe in January 2018.

“We’ll be able to hear out here,” she said.

The city’s tax collector was right. Inside the former classroom were not only residents cued up to make payments but multiple phones were ringing. The office was humming. Clerks were answering calls as quickly as possible, but the tsunami was just too much.

It all started last week in the wake of the latest Department of Motor Vehicles mailing to those owing municipal taxes on their cars. The DMV sent out 60,000 “tax block” letters statewide, 8,073 to Warwick residents.

The city had no warning of the notices, although, even if they had, there would be no way of handling all the calls. Checking his computer, William Miranda, deputy tax collector, said the office received 900 calls on Monday. Many of those could have been people calling multiple times before finally connecting.

This isn’t the first time the tax collector has been bombarded with calls about motor vehicle taxes. It happened in February when the DMV updated its computer system and sent out 120,000 tax block letters. At that time the DMV explained many of the delinquencies went back years and with new programming they were able to sweep all their records.

Prompting the effort is legislation introduced by Rep. Gregory J. Costantino of Johnston and co-signed by Warwick Rep. David Bennett in response to the DMV’s practice of not sending motor vehicle registration renewal notices to those owing municipal taxes. The legislators wanted the department to give fair notice before discovering they couldn’t re-register their vehicles.

As Paul Grimaldi, spokesman for the DMV, explained Tuesday, the DMV and legislators met to come up with a plan as to when and how frequently those notices should be sent.

“It was going to be more than once a year,” said Grimaldi, “but less than every day.”

Now as law, the legislation requires the DMV to mail the tax block letters in June and December.

As Peder Schaefer with the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns points out, while the mandate helps, it doesn’t solve the problem because the department is still not mailing renewal notices to those owing municipal taxes.

“The root of the problem is not mailing notices to those in arrears,” he said.

What he feels should happen is that as a renewal comes up a notice go to the vehicle owner informing them they must clear up city or town taxes due. If that were to happen, the tax collector would surely still get calls, but not hundreds of them in a day. People would get answers instead of hanging on the phones for an eternity or, as has happened, calling the mayor’s office.

Alternatively, might the DMV adopt a system of mailing out the tax block letters over the months of June and December instead of all at once so as to lessen the impact on municipal tax collectors?

Grimaldi didn’t know how that would work.

“We’re doing what’s required by law,” he said.

Noting the mailing that went out in February, Grimaldi said at least for this year the DMV will send out three notices.

Jones looked to find a bright side to what her co-workers were going through. As the notices went out in early June, she speculated the office might have less of a volume of people seeking to straighten out past due motor vehicle taxes when they get their tax bills next month.

Tax Assessor Neal Dupuis said Tuesday those bills wouldn’t be finalized until he certifies the tax rolls in another week to 10 days. Once that happens, he said, it would be another week before the bills are in the mail.

Assuming that schedule is met, the first quarterly tax payment is due July 15. A taxpayer may opt to pay the bill in full, in which case it is due Sept. 15.

Comments

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  • georgecarver

    We went to City hall and asked what the specific amount was for? Blank stares is all we got. All of the stubs, online bills already paid in full showed nothing, not even a hint of us being past due on anything tax wise. Its not like we are out flipping cars and just happened to forgot one, if that even makes sense.

    We wrote our check for the over $100- in good faith ....I hope .

    Not good to Tax people without any specif information other than what they say you owe. A man behind my wife had a bill of over $2,200.00. I guess we got away lucky?

    Is this somehow tied to the FBI investigation of Warwick management and Fire dept? Is it just me? Just Warwick? Just R.I. What the hell is going on?

    Thursday, June 6, 2019 Report this

  • wwkvoter

    Typical Rhode Island Stupidity. If only we could monetize govt stupidity we'd not always be on the fiscal cliff.

    DUH. For those in local arrears, mail the registration renewals as always but to those who are locked on unpaid taxes, with a form to be signed by your city tax dept that you paid up. EZ (TOO EZ for RI)

    To not mail the renewal form and now add a "tax block letter" to be send NOT when the renewal is due, is just, well, RI Stupidity as usual.

    Nice to know that I have not been abducted by space aliens and am still in RI...

    Thursday, June 6, 2019 Report this

  • Cat2222

    Wouldn't you be able to tell if you were delinquent on your car tax by using the Online Warwick Motor Vehicle Tax search engine? Last Name or License # will get you a view of what you paid and what you owe. Am I the only one that does a check annually to ensure my payments are up to date?

    Friday, June 7, 2019 Report this

  • mra139

    ahh the old simpler days when the renewal was stamped "TAXES DUE".

    Saturday, June 8, 2019 Report this

  • georgecarver

    Cat

    We typically pay taxes and many other things online. According to what we saw online we were fine, nothing due. That was the reason for our concern especially after not getting an answer on site.

    Monday, June 10, 2019 Report this

  • Cat2222

    george carver

    It is insane that you must pay first and then find out why later. I understand why you would feel the need to ensure payment goes through timely but I would still demand to have proof/evidence that I owed it in the first place. If online backs up your personal record keeping then I would be more inclined to believe it was a data entry error or two systems not talking to one another rather than being late on a payment. The sad part is just how hard it will be to get your money back if indeed it was an error and you owed nothing. RI just seems to become more backwards rather than progressive.

    Monday, June 10, 2019 Report this

  • eggmanred

    So, I get a bill out of nowhere for 2016. Two days later I get a letter from DMV saying I am being blocked. To be honest, I am not sure I owe the money or not. Each year at tax time I go to tax office and get a copy of my taxes I paid and confirm I am all paid up. But suddenly out of no where, I owe for three years ago? And I have been registering my cars no problem (two cars since 2016) so I have no idea. This screams of ineptitude. It seems for sure that the tax office is a mess. With the fiscal problems we are having, to see this kind of stuff is embarrassing as a lifelong resident of the city (I'm almost 60!). But wait, it gets worse! I go online to the Tyler Technologies site (Warwick Self Service). What a joke of a site! If you can figure out how to query, which I did after 5 or 10 minutes, the records are woefully out of date with many missing years. So I called the tax office. (I behaved myself and was nice.) The girl asks me my name and tell me I owe "X". I tell her I'm not sure. She says go online to pay. I tell her the website stinks and is wrong. She says I'm clicking the wrong links. (I'm not sure how she knew that?). I go back to site. Nothing. (I'm being nice here.) Come on, Warwick! We can do better than this. If our elected public officials can't get this worked out, its time for new blood. For a city the size of Warwick, this is embarrassing.

    Friday, June 21, 2019 Report this