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Collection agency going after Boston residents for decades-old excise bills
By adamg on Wed, 11/05/2014 - 2:17pm
The City Council today approved a hearing on aggressive collection tactics by a company working for the city to collect on back auto-excise taxes that Councilor Tim McCarthy (Hyde Park, Roslindale, Mattapan) says many people may not even realize they owe.
McCarthy, who called for the hearing, said today he has a constituent unable to renew his driver's license because of a 1988 bill for $100 that, with interest, now totals $1,784.29. The company demanded all the money at once, he said.
"He's now lost his license, and as a senior, a veteran, he certainly can't write a check for $1784.29," McCarthy said, adding the man is now driving illegally to get to appointments at his doctor and hospital.
McCarthy said residents are getting hit with immediate demand notices and that the company refuses to take no for an answer or offer a payment plan unless, maybe, they can come up with cancelled checks to prove they originally paid - and even, then, they could still be billed fees.
"I think there is only one person on the planet who has a check they have cancelled from 1988, and it's probably my father in law," he said.
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Comments
Collection agencies going
Collection agencies going after a 26-year old debt? How much is the City paying for this? As much as I don't think people should be able to skip out on paying taxes, I think if takes the City 26 years to figure it out, then that's tough luck. Also, getting charged fees? For what? The City's inability to keep its records straight? I call BS.
I once was contacted by a collection agency for an outstanding parking ticket. It was a similar situation: a $25 ticket turned into several hundred dollars of penalties.
After a few seconds of astonishment, I realized that the ticket was issued to a registration I had returned when I made an out-of-state move three years earlier. The DMV reissued the registration to someone else, but didn't update its records. I'm sure that I had been receiving nastygrams at my old address about the ticket for months, but because I moved, I never saw them. I guess finally the DMV gave the file to a collection agency who tracked me down immediately.
When I called the collection agency to explain and ask what to do, the agent on the phone sighed, and said, "They don't update these things." Luckily, for some crazy reason, I still had the dated plate-return receipt, and I was able to send a copy of it to the collection agency and never heard from them again.
City Council
I've finally come to understand why the City Council deserved that $25 G pay raise. It's not easy work trying to get your father-in-law out of paying a tax he should have paid 25 years ago. What is he doing now anyway? Driving illegally? As a public official have you called the Police to watch out for this outlaw? Councilor McCarthy, saving your family a few hundred bucks is well worth $125 G to the citizens of Boston. Maybe after this you can hold a hearing on why your "fiscally conservative" friends in the Council, Steve Murphy and Billy Linehan should be entitled to spike their pensions.
I am confused
MA's statute of limitations on debt collection is six years. Even if this collection agency did buy up old excise bills, it's all worthless paper.
Does the limitation apply to
Does the limitation apply to the state?
for ordinary consumer debt
you're correct. I wonder if there's an exception in state law for fines and money owed to the government?
OTOH, since "driving is a privilege," the government can theoretically suspend your license for any reason or for no reason at all, without having to win any sort of judgment in court. This is how they go after people who don't pay child support, for example. In Wisconsin, at one point, you could get your license suspended for any money owed the government, including (theoretically) fines from failure to return overdue library books. (Source, which I realize may be outdated given the age of the article.)
How is there not a statute of limitations on this
At some point the state has to make a reasonable effort to find you and force you to pay. How can you let this stuff go on for so many years and have it still be valid?
They DO make a reasonable effort
If you've got excise taxes outstanding, you can't register your car, am I right? Or, possibly, do any Registry business?
26 years later
This was for a bill from 1988. If you don't act within a few years - sorry - even if you are the state you shouldn't be able to hound someone decades later. Sounds like the license suspension was fairly recent.
the bills are sent out by the city
The city is then supposed to send notices of nonpayment to the RMV so that you can be blocked from registration renewal and so forth. Wouldn't surprise me if in the pre- or early-computer era, when cities were also too strapped to deal with paper clerical stuff efficiently, a few notices never made it to the RMV or got dropped on the floor or whatever. That frequently happened with motor vehicle paperwork in the '80s everywhere in the U.S., not just Mass.
Philadelphia, for instance, ended up by the mid '90s with tons of unpaid citations for *moving violations* (not parking tickets, moving violations) because they never forwarded the "failure to appear" records to PennDOT so peoples' licenses could be suspended. Suddenly they got caught up with the backlog and people had to pay thousands of dollars in traffic fines and interest, in some cases going back to the 1970s, to get licenses reinstated. In some cases, they discovered people with really horrific driving records who should have had licenses suspended on violation points--but nobody was forwarding the paper records to Harrisburg.
It wouldn't surprise me if it
It wouldn't surprise me if it were STILL happening. I rolled over my CoB deferred compensation to my new IRA after I changed jobs. I filled out the paperwork, sent it in, only to be told by the company that managed the def. comp. plan that the City's payroll department still had me listed as an active employee. Phone call, message, "Oh, I'll make that change..." and only then the transfer went through. If the payroll department cannot keep on top of who is and who is not on its payroll, then I suspect that many other notifications and transfers are falling through the cracks.
They got me
I recently had to pay a 1985 excise tax that was under my husband's name.....no choice if we wanted to get the registration renewed.
Bet that husband had a lot of
Bet that husband had a lot of 'splainin' to do...
I recently got hit with the
I recently got hit with the state not renewing my driver's license because of an outstanding excise bill from 1987. I had renewed my license at least five times in that 26 year period and this bill had never come up. I had no idea it even existed. It suddenly reappeared after 26 years. I remembered that I had sold one car and bought another in 1987, but there was no way I had any records either to prove I'd paid the excise, or that the registration and plates had been turned in, or that the bill was in error. I simply had to pay it or be denied my license. It is an abuse of the system to do this. Even the IRS can't go after you after seven years!
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) protects consumers from harassment, etc. from debt collectors. http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0149-debt-collection. Mention this if they call you, tell them you want proof of the debt in writing and not to call you any further.
Are there any state
Are there any state legislators who would have the courage to change this situation?