Delaware – Delaware Division of Revenue Director Patrick Carter announced today that the State of Delaware has posted another list of Delaware’s ‘Top 100‘ Delinquent Taxpayers online.
This is the fifth quarterly posting for the Delaware Division of Revenue since the inception of this program. “In less than two years this program has collected more than $3.3 million in back taxes from delinquent taxpayers whose names were posted, or were notified that their names qualified for posting, to the Delaware Delinquent Taxpayers website,” says Carter. He expects the site to bring in even more money for the state in the weeks to come.
The website – located at www.revenue.delaware.gov/ddt.shtml – posts for public view the names of individual and business taxpayers who owe unpaid tax bills to the state. By legislative order, larger balances are targeted first for publication. Each quarter the next 100 consecutive business and 100 consecutive personal tax payers with unresolved balances over $1,000 are posted to the site. Today’s lists contain individuals and businesses that, combined, owe more than $24 million to the state. Most of these liabilities have been extremely difficult to collect.
“The Delinquent Taxpayer site has been an extremely helpful tool for Delaware as we push to collect outstanding tax debt,” says Carter. “With the economic slowdown, it’s important that Revenue maximize tax revenue and, at the same time, do this in the most efficient way possible. We’ve done this with this program because with these types of delinquent accounts we’d rely on collection agencies and would have paid them fees to collect this debt. The site also had very little startup and minor ongoing maintenance costs, so we’re in line, if not ahead, with the cost efficiency approach state agencies are striving to implement.”
Since its inception in February 2007, the Delinquent Taxpayers page – www.revenue.delaware.gov/ddt.shtml – has encouraged more than 400 Delaware taxpayers to enter into payment agreements or resolve their unpaid tax bills.
Rep. Deborah Hudson proposed the program and sponsored the legislation that established the posting requirements for Delaware’s delinquent taxpayers. To meet the criteria for posting to the Delaware Delinquent Taxpayers site, individuals and businesses must have already received a judgment for unpaid taxes. They must then be notified by mail that their name qualifies to be posted online and are given 60 days to respond. The names of those who enter into a payment agreement with the Division of Revenue or pay their balance in full prior to posting are not published or if after posting are removed from the Delinquent Taxpayers list. Taxpayers who have filed for bankruptcy protection or have incurred a liability that is being appealed are excluded from the published list until their case has been resolved.
