Here’s another glaring example of why the car tax is such a bad tax. Unlike houses, cars tend to move along with the people that own them to other cities, often in other states. Stamford recently hired a collection agency to to collect outstanding taxes on cars from 1992 to 2003. The outstanding tax is about $6 million. The state law says a municipality has up to 15 years to collect, and does not need to prove that a bill was received by the taxpayer. So some former Stamford residents are shocked to find outstanding bills plus interest. A short sampling from some message boards:

I moved to Oregon almost 10 years ago and just got a bill for motor vehicle tax from the collection agency. I don’t mind paying what I owe, but why do I have to pay almost 10 years’ worth of interst in penalties when the city is so incompetent that they can’t send mail out. We listed our new Oregon address with the post office and all our mail seemed to arrive fine. Doesn’t the city of Stamford send out a second bill that could be forwarded by the post office? If I owe money, I should pay it and I’m happy to pay it. I’ll even pay one year’s interst in penalties for the inconvenience I caused the city by moving away. But why should I pay for almost 10 years’ worth of incompetence? by T Glassman Medford, OR
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In my case, I had only lived in CT for less than a year before moving out of state. I had never received one of these bills before and was never aware of it. I was not trying to avoid it and I would not have bothered trying to avoid it. I tried to be a good citizen and follow the rules. There was no indication at the CT DMV of any taxes that needed to be made. There was no letter from the city of Stamford upon registration of the car that there was a tax. The tax was pretty much hidden charge to me.

I think that the burden of the timely notification of the existence of the tax rests on the City of Stamford. I would pay the original amount. But it is unfair to charge all of the excess interest and fees especially since the Tax Assesment office was not competent enough to notify me within 10 years. It is beyond reason. by 10 years in CA San Diego, CA

Meanwhile there are plenty of people who avoid the tax by registering their cars out of state. There is a state law that says that practice is illegal. According to the Norwalk Advocate, Stamford started the collections process last year and have only netted $1.4. It was unclear if the the $6 million outstanding was the total amount at the start of the collections, or the current outstanding balance. But it does point to the difficulty that municipalities have in collecting the tax in the first place. Governor Rell’s car tax elimination plan is linked here.