Decatur residents with outstanding fines may see their state income tax return shrink after the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution Tuesday allowing the town to set unpaid fines against residents’ tax returns.
“We received from (Mississippi Municipal League) all this paperwork. It’s a resolution. It’s an agreement, and it’s a letter that the town will send to the person that it will effect their taxes to get their fines paid,” City Clerk Brenda Harper said.
Residents with unpaid fines will receive a letter on Town of Decatur letterhead explaining the fines they owe and warning they may see their tax return garnished should they choose not to settle their debt to the town beforehand, Harper said.
The ability to set old fines against residents’ tax returns comes as counties and municipalities throughout the state have been struggling to collect unpaid debts. Previously, Steve Gray, director of government affairs for Mississippi Association of Supervisors explained how counties had millions of dollars of unpaid garbage collection fees on the books that they couldn’t write off.
“That’s money they have to make up,” he said. “At the county level, they have to make it up through property taxes.”
During the 2019 legislative session, Mississippi Municipal League and the Mississippi Association of Supervisors supported the passage of HB981, which gave counties and municipalities the power to garnish residents’ state tax returns.
Robbie Brown, deputy director of Mississippi Municipal League, said the resolution Decatur passed was sent to all MML member municipalities as part of the implementation process. He said the first round of debts will be submitted to the Department of Revenue in January.
“The first round of debts submitted to the Department of Revenue will be from the municipalities represented on the MML Executive Committee and the City of Jackson. That will occur in January of 2020,” Brown said via email.
As this is a new initiative to help municipalities collect outstanding fines, Brown said MML wanted to do a small test-submission first to make sure there were no hiccups from either the MML or the Department of Revenue. Should everything go smoothly, he said the rest of the debts will be submitted in February 2020.
“If everything goes well with that submission, then MML will submit debts for setoff from all MML member municipalities in February,” he said. “We wanted to do the first submission with a smaller group to be sure everything worked on our end and DOR’s end before we submitted everybody’s.”
The Town of Decatur is not a part of the MML executive committee, so it’s debts will be submitted in February as well, Brown said.
In other business, the Board of Aldermen:
●•Approved rolling over the cemetery CD account for 1-year. The account has approximately 25,000 in it, which is enough for 13 months of cemetery upkeep;
●•Approved installing a spotlight near the mural on 4th avenue to highlight the mural and improve safety;
•●Approved the town’s annual Municipal Compliance report, which records the town’s adherence to proper municipal procedure and is done each year prior to the annual financial audit; and
•●Approved a zoning board request for Tanisha Hawkins to install a mobile home on her property.
