THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070452
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Your car may be a year older, but in Portsmouth's newly computerized eyes, it may be worth more - and that means a bigger tax bite.
It's not a tax increase, per se. Rather, the city has acquired the ability to charge you for such dealer-installed niceties as air conditioning, an automatic transmission and a luxury stereo system that have, until now, gone unassessed.
It's a good thing air conditioning isn't common on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, because bills on those and utility vehicles went up as well, the result of an increase in demand that is driving up resale values nationwide.
Personal property tax offices in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have been inundated with calls since the vehicle tax bills went out. Suffolk's property tax bills are not sent until October and November.
This year, Portsmouth bought a database tape of vehicle identification numbers that enables it to flag cars with luxury options. It then began taxing folks for those add-ons.
In the past, the city has been able to assess cars only on their base value. Other area cities said they have been using computers and database tapes from the National Automobile Dealers Association for years.
When the bills were done by hand, said A. James Fillion, Portsmouth's commissioner of the revenue, it was often easier to leave off a $50 increase in the assessment than to change the bill. Adding options by hand was nearly impossible, Fillion said. With the new tapes, the bills are automatically tallied, including the options and even small increases in value.
Portsmouth's tax bills went out with no warning or explanation for the higher rates. The taxes are due June 30. Property taxes were due Monday in Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
H. Timothy Little, Portsmouth's deputy city manager, said assessments increased on more than 16,000 cars in the city. Assessments jumped by more than 10 percent on a quarter of those.
Fillion said his office has received about 200 phone calls since the new bills were delivered last week. Most callers complained about the increases on trucks and motorcycles, he said.
That increase was not Portsmouth's doing. The National Automobile Dealers Association book, also known as the ``blue book,'' is used as a base for the tax rates, and it raised the value of those vehicles.
``Because manufacturers have increased light-truck prices so quickly and the demand for used trucks is so high, the value of used vehicles has been bid up considerably,'' Ralph W. Winters, the blue book's publisher, wrote in a letter to Norfolk. ``This trend will probably continue for at least 1995 and well into 1996.''
It's the same story with used motorcycles.
``Popularity and demand for Harley-Davidson motorcycles and their products have never been higher,'' the editor of NADA Appraisal Guides wrote.
In Portsmouth, the switch to automation added to the complaints.
``We didn't warn residents,'' Fillion said. ``There's not much you can warn them about. We did it all by automation. We didn't really realize utility vehicles had gone up.''
Fillion said the city is trying to answer callers' questions.
``We'll explain the bills to them over the phone, and we will check the figure in the book to see if it's right,'' Fillion said. ``Then we'll send a letter to explain as best we can what happened.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
CALLING THE CITY
The personal property tax office in Portsmouth can be reached at
393-8779.
by CNB