Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504200049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Marsha Compton Fielder may be the most unpopular person in Roanoke this week.
Friday, the commissioner of the revenue began sending annual personal property tax assessments for residents' cars, trucks, boats and other items.
By this coming Saturday, more than 52,000 of the wallet-walloping bills will have arrived at homes throughout the city, prompting groans and curses on every street.
In 1995, Roanokers are being asked to cough up nearly $16 million just for owning their own means of transportation, $1.7 million more than in 1994. That works out to about $163 for every man, woman and child in the city.
It's not a position your average politician wants to be in.
After all, tax assessors hold one of the most reviled occupations in history. Known as "publicans" in the Bible, their New Testament peers were sinners, adulterers, heathens, harlots and extortionists. Even beggars and lepers rated higher in the social order.
In that regard, not much has changed. But the city's only female constitutional officer takes the heat in stride.
"I love what I do," she says. "What I and my staff are doing is trying to make it as easy and as pleasant [for taxpayers] as possible."
When she ran for office in 1993, after spending 14 years working for her father, Roanoke County Commissioner of the Revenue Wayne Compton, "People said, 'How could she know what to do? She's only worked for her father for 14 years,''' Fielder recalls.
But after only 15 months in the job, Fielder reels off a laundry list of accomplishments: shorter lines at her office, income-tax savings for citizens, the corralling of tax deadbeats and additional revenue for the city.
"Most people realize they have to pay taxes. And if you're paying, you want everybody to be paying their fair share," she says.
Fielder campaigned with a promise to diminish long lines for personal-property taxpayers.
Last-minute lines were still there in 1994, but they were shorter, she says.
That's largely the result of an administrative change preventing car owners who forgot to file returns from being wiped off the tax books.
Before, thousands of nonfilers had to show up in person to pay the tax, whereas now they have the option of paying by mail like everyone else.
For the first time, her office is processing state income tax returns. Before this year, the city was the only jurisdiction in the Roanoke Valley that didn't offer that service.
Of the 14,000 or so Virginia income tax returns the office had fielded by last week, about 15 percent had errors, she said.
In 90 percent of those cases, taxpayers ended up with larger refunds, Fielder said. Most of the overpayments came from two-income couples filing as "married filing jointly" rather than "married filing separately."
She's also getting high marks from Roanoke City Council, which pays monthly compliments to her for the increased revenue she's raking in - money that alleviates the need for increases in the real estate tax rate.
By Fielder's estimate, operational changes she's instituted have added about $773,000 to city coffers, an amount equal to more than 2 cents on the real estate tax rate.
"She's doing terrific. She's brought some new systems and ways of doing things to that office," Mayor David Bowers says.
The changes touch several areas.
Late last year, workers in Fielder's office began cross-referencing city personal-property tax on vehicles with records maintained by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The top producer of untaxed vehicles each month gets a Friday afternoon off with pay.
The process has uncovered hundreds of cars, trucks and trailers on which residents and businesses haven't paid tax. Fielder estimates those "catches" during the last four months of 1994 added $500,000 to city coffers.
One of those deadbeats was James Brunson of Roanoke, who on Tuesday found himself paying about $150 in tax and penalties for an Audi he owned but didn't pay tax on in 1989 and 1990.
"You can't get away with anything these days," Brunson laughed.
Another DMV catch brought brought in $50,000 this month from FOE Trucking, a subsidiary of Fuel Oil and Equipment Co.
Gil McGeorge, the company's chief financial officer, said FOE believed for years that its 200 trucks and trailers were exempt because they were used exclusively for interstate transport.
Fielder's office disagreed; and a review of the law convinced McGeorge she was right.
Employees also have uncovered hundreds of business people who weren't paying business, professional and occupational license taxes. They were found by cross-checking licenses with federal business income tax schedules the state sends to her office.
From July to December last year, that brought in $273,000 from hundreds of professionals and self-employed tradespeople who hadn't bothered to get licenses.
The commissioner of the revenue this year began requiring itemized lists of all equipment owned by each of the 6,000 or so businesses located in the city.
Before the change, businesses weren't required to list property separately. The inventories are needed to more fairly assess taxes on equipment, Fielder said.
The inventory has irritated some people, however. One of them is Don Sharrer, owner of S&H Auto Service on Seventh Street Southwest.
Sharrer, who says he made $17,000 in profits in 1994, says the inventory creates a stress for small-business people like himself.
"What they're trying to say is we have to pay tax on every single item I use in the business - every hammer, every screwdriver, and every pencil.
"I think they get enough of our tax money as it is," he adds. "They're just trying to gouge us deeper."
by CNB