RICHMOND, Va. — The Richmond Finance Department sent out at least 200 incorrect personal property tax bills, a city official said in an email obtained by CBS 6.
Some viewers have reached out to CBS 6 with questions about their car tax bills, and some councilmembers said they've also fielded concerns about potential issues.
"Over the past week our office has heard from a number of residents about huge increases in car assessments that were clearly incorrect," said Councilmember Kenya Gibson (3rd District).
In an email sent earlier this week, a liaison for Councilmember Andrew Breton (1st District) told Interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg that "several residents with vehicles over 20 years old" had their assessments jump over $20,000 despite receiving an assessment of around $2,300 last year.
In response, finance department contractor Anne Seward stated in an email that incorrect bills were sent to 223 taxpayers, which she called a "small population." She said there was a "conversion year glitch" at the 20-year mark in the valuation methodology that impacted vehicles with 2004 and 2005 models.
Seward added that corrected bills are being uploaded to impacted customers' online accounts and will re-issued through the mail.
City spokesperson Ross Catrow said the mistakes impacted 0.1% of customers as the department handles tax billing for over 200,000 vehicles.
Catrow added that the department is operating at a 1% correction rate for personal property tax bills, which is down from 2-3% last year. He said finance is focused on improving its data collection from third parties, automating processes, increasing response times, and strengthening internal controls.
Gibson said it was "incredibly concerning" to learn of another finance department issue on the heels of more than 8,000 incorrect rebate checks being issued back in March.
"I've expressed concern about the high rates of turnover in the finance department for this very reason. Accountability begins with training and consistency," she said in a statement.
The city previously attributed the rebate checks errors to poor quality controls and said the finance department had no standard operating procedures in the place that could've helped prevent the problems.
At the time, Councilmember Ellen Robertson said she was "not feeling any real comfort" that the finance department wouldn't "continue to have some glitches that have not been addressed."
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