
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990                   TAG: 9005100673
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

70 VIRGINIA BUSINESSES FACE CLOSING

Seventy businesses have been told their doors will be padlocked unless they pay back taxes, and notices to more delinquent businesses are in the mail, the state Department of Taxation says.

Despite the threats, the department has yet to padlock a business. Of the eight cases that have been resolved, one business declared bankruptcy, one went out of business and six negotiated payments, department spokeswoman Alice Wells said Wednesday.

The department knows of 5,700 businesses that owe a total of more than $13 million in taxes and may be subject to stiffer enforcement laws that took effect April 1, she said.

"We're pulling chronically delinquent taxpayers from that 5,700 and they have to fit into our padlocking criteria," she said.

Those criteria include owing more than $100 in back taxes, interest and penalties, receiving an assessment from the tax department and having a memorandum of lien filed against the business in circuit court.

The crackdown follows an amnesty program that ran from Feb. 1 to March 31. By agreeing to waive the penalties for tax delinquents, the state got $32.2 million in back taxes and interest from more than 20,000 individuals and businesses.

- Associated Press

by CNB