Fairfax County’s move to increasingly outsource its delinquent tax collections will mean higher bills for some of the worst tax cheats.
As part of recent budget cuts, the County Attorney’s Office and Department of Tax Administration will be shedding some staff who track down the errant tax revenue. Instead, the county will turn those duties over to an outside law firm and expand its use of a private collector.
The outsourcing saves money because the firms can charge the delinquent payer, not the county, the cost of their services — as much as 20 percent of the outstanding tax bill, said Kevin Greenlief, director of the Department of Tax Administration.
The firms will focus on recouping the small percentage of Fairfax County’s tax base that goes unpaid each year. In raw numbers, however, that loss equates to millions of dollars. For this fiscal year alone, the county is owed $8.1 million in real estate tax, $5.6 million in personal property tax and $2.5 million in business license fees, according to the county.
In most cases, deploying lawyers to help collect delinquent taxes isn’t necessary. But the law firm will give the county another means to recoup the money, especially real estate taxes, when “more draconian steps” become necessary, Greenlief said.
“Where you turn to an attorney are [for] things where you haven’t found a way to collect — you haven’t found a bank account, you haven’t found wages, you haven’t found a car to seize, and you might want to sell the property,” he said.
Fairfax County supervisors recently approved a $3.3 billion fiscal 2010 budget that cuts spending and raises tax and fee rates to close a $650 million shortfall. That includes raising the real estate tax rate 12 cents per $100 of assessed value to $1.04.
