NY transplants get crash course on CT car taxes
Municipal Tax Services, a company that identifies scofflaws says New Yorkers may not know about motor vehicle levies
STAMFORD – The influx of New Yorkers to Stamford since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has boosted more than house sales.
It’s increased the number of vehicles bearing New York plates.
They are showing up in investigations conducted by Municipal Tax Services, a company the city hired last year to identify car owners who should be paying motor vehicle taxes in Stamford but aren’t.
MTS owner Carl DeProfio said transplanted New Yorkers may not be evading the tax – they may not know they have to pay it.
“It could be on purpose, but New York doesn’t charge car taxes, so it could be they are not aware that when you move to Connecticut you have 60 days to register your car here,” DeProfio said. “Once you’re registered, you’re taxed.”
Technically, car taxes begin when
a home is purchased, DeProfio said.
“Under tax law, if you maintain a residence in Connecticut, your car is taxable immediately,” he said.
Some of the more than 1,400 New Yorkers who moved to Stamford since COVID-19 may be getting notices from the assessor that their vehicle is about to be taxed.
MTS, hired last year, identifies motorists who may owe taxes by sending
out investigators — mostly at night, when people are at home — to photograph vehicles, log their whereabouts using GPS, and electronically scan license plates.
MTS checks the vehicles against DMV information, the city’s grand list and other databases and gives the research to the tax assessor to determine whether motor vehicle levies apply.
“We’re finding from the information downloaded from the city, from talking to our people in the field, and from talking to the assessors that there has
been a tremendous influx of New York people into Connecticut,” DeProfio said.
Information from the U.S. Postal Service has shown that, in the three months after the March arrival of COVID-19, more than 16,000 New Yorkers moved to Connecticut. Most are living in the Stamford area, but certainly not all.
“We’re seeing New Milford, Bethel, Weston,” DeProfio said. “They’re all saying the number of New York people buying homes is incredible.”
Multiple reports have suggested New York City
dwellers are seeking more social distance, and escape from the restrictions imposed to limit spread of the virus.
COVID-19 is affecting the tax collection effort in another way, DeProfio said. To avoid contagion, the Stamford Government Center has been closed for six months, but MTS, as a government service, has been working.
“We couldn’t go to city hall, we couldn’t sit with the assessor to discuss cases, we couldn’t drop off information or access databases,” DeProfio said. “We have in excess of 200 vehicles that were ready to go in March, but the city didn’t want to establish new cases until they got caught up.”
City representatives learned this week that, since the MTS contract began in February 2019, the tax department has collected nearly $216,000 it otherwise could not have expected from from nearly 1,500 vehicle owners who failed to register their vehicles in Stamford.
In that time MTS collected the same amount because, under its contract, it evenly splits tax revenue and penalty fees when violators are first identified. MTS also collects a $50 fee from each violator — a total of $48,600 so far.
Once the new tax accounts are on the rolls, the city collects the full amount in each subsequent year.
It’s not clear how much the revenue totals will increase once the city adds some of the cases MTS has ready. Tax Assessor Greg Stackpole did not return messages seeking comment.
Before the city enacted the contract with MTS, some representatives said they were concerned that middle- and low-income residents would be targeted because investigators collect information on cars parked at curbs, in short driveways and other places easily visible from the street. Collecting data on cars parked on larger properties in more affluent neighborhoods is more difficult.
MTS tries to work around that, DeProfio said.
“We can’t go into a gated community. We can’t go into places that are private,” he said. “But we can set up outside in the morning when people are pulling out to go to work.”
There is a way MTS gets information on cars that live in high-end places.
The company allows residents to report suspected vehicles anonymously on its website. A good number of Stamford residents have been doing that from the start, DeProfio said. Residents say it’s unfair that some people evade Stamford car taxes by registering their vehicles in places that charge less.
“We still get a lot of reports,” he said. “Someone from Stamford told us about three vehicles in a long driveway with a fourcar garage. We went multiple times and were able to see two cars. But they were on Stamford’s grand list, so they were taxed. You’re never going to get everybody. You can only do what you can do.”
Most offenders are not registered out of state, or in Connecticut towns that charge less tax, DeProfio said. The largest number are not registered anywhere.
“We see a tremendous number of unregistered vehicles,” he said. “It’s because the DMV sends you your registration card and you pay the fee, but if you don’t have your emissions tested, they don’t actually register your car. There are a lot of people running around with expired registrations and may not realize it.”
The company gathers research on each vehicle and leaves it for the tax assessor to decide, DeProfio said.
“We’re not peeking in garages and windows. We’re not here to invade privacy or spy on people,” he said. “We only pursue 45 percent of the people we initiate cases on because there are valid explanations for things. Nothing is as it is until you look into it.”