Thomas MacMillan Photo
Adam Zimmer said he lives in Mansfield, where he pays local taxes for his Jeep Grand Cherokee, Saab 95 Aero, and Harley Softail. But, he told city lawmakers revisiting New Haven’s tax assessment mess, that didn’t stop him from getting taxed in New Haven too.
Zimmer (pictured) was the only member of the public to show up for a special aldermanic meeting last week in City Hall about motor vehicle tax abatement.
At issue: Can, and should, the Board of Aldermen’s Tax Abatement Committee be able to abate motor vehicle taxes or correct assessment errors? Or should a new committee be created?
While those questions remained unanswered at evening’s end, Zimmer’s testimony underscored why this subject has consumed New Haven’s attention, bringing longstanding gripes about mistakes and misbehavior in the tax assessor’s office back to the fore. His tale of frustration and confusion while dealing with the assessor’s office caused aldermen to again call for the ouster or discipline of assessor Bill O’Brien.
That same call went up last year after allegations of capricious and rude misconduct at the assessor’s office emerged. The Tax Abatement Committee spent months investigating those charges, as well as looking into allegations of incompetence and nepotism at the Board of Assessment Appeals.
Zimmer was brimming over with contempt for the assessor as he sat down across from aldermen Wednesday night. Visibly upset, he said he hadn’t slept or eaten well for days as he tried to fix his New Haven car tax problems.
The 31-year-old told aldermen he lives at his parents’ house on Dog Lane in Mansfield. He acknowledged that he spends a lot of time at his girlfriend’s house on Elm Street in New Haven.
It’s there that MTS, the tax scofflaw investigators contracted by the city, photographed his 2004 Saab 95 Aero parked. An investigation found Zimmer’s name associated with a utility bill at a house nearby. After sending several unanswered letters to that address, the assessor’s office decided Zimmer owed New Haven taxes on his Saab.
Zimmer found all that out after he tried last Tuesday to renew the registration on his 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee and was denied due to an outstanding tax bill in New Haven. He said he never saw the letters sent to his girlfriend’s house.
Zimmer said he spends as much as five months a year in New Haven, but alternates among his Saab, his Jeep, and his 2000 Harley Davidson softail, so that each vehicle spends the majority of the year stored in Mansfield.
Since last Tuesday, Zimmer has been fighting the tax bill. He said he’s researched tax law and made endless phone calls to his state representative, to the DMV, to MTS, to the tax assessor in Mansfield, and of course to the New Haven tax assessor. He said he was told that the burden of proof is on him to show he doesn’t live in New Haven.
He said O’Brien’s office offered him several options: Pay the New Haven taxes and then request a refund from Mansfield for the duplicate taxes he paid there, wait for the September meeting of the Board of Assessment Appeals, or show the assessor’s office a 1040 tax form with his Mansfield address, a voter registration card, or a utility bill.
Zimmer, who’s unemployed, said he doesn’t have a recent tax form. He said he hasn’t voted recently, and the utility bill at his home in Mansfield is in his mom’s name.
He said the Mansfield tax assessor called O’Brien’s office and vouched for him, saying he is a longtime resident there and has paid his taxes. But O’Brien didn’t listen, Zimmer said.
To make matters worse, Zimmer said, he drove down to New Haven on Monday to visit his girlfriend. They went out downtown, came back to where he’d parked his car, and it was gone. Frantic, he called the police to report it stolen. He learned it had been towed for unpaid taxes. With help from Victor Bolden, city corporation counsel, Zimmer was able to get the car out of the tow lot, but still owes the taxes, he said.
Zimmer said he went to O’Brien’s office and confronted him, and was nearly arrested after he pointed his finger at the assessor.
“I will stop my rant at this point,” said Zimmer, before alderman began asking him questions.
Goldson.
West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson said that Zimmer should just be able to sign an affidavit saying he lives in Mansfield, as O’Brien was able to do when questions arose about where he pays his taxes.
“We will find a way to resolve your problem,” Goldson promised.
“I am really, really perturbed,” Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks said later. “At the bottom of this we have an employee in the wrong position.” O’Brien has demonstrated an “inability to deal with people.” She said she will be sending a letter to the mayor, calling for him to be disciplined.
Jackson-Brooks.
Whither Tax Complaints?
Last year, as the tax abatement committee was investigating shenanigans in the assessor’s office, the committee also started handling a lot of motor vehicle tax abatement applications. Many of those involved complaints of simple yet hard-to-rectify errors on the part of the assessor. While the committee tackled these applications as they arose, it later emerged that the body is not endowed with the power to do so, as its regulations now stand.
That realization led to Wednesday night’s special meeting of the “committee of the whole,” which meets as needed to take up occasional big-ticket legislative matters. Theoretically, the committee comprises all aldermen. Only 14 showed up Wednesday night, not enough for a quorum.
Bolden, the city’s corporation counsel, told aldermen that state statute allows the city to perform abatement only for an inability to pay, not because of a clerical or administrative error. And while there’s no law preventing the Tax Abatement Committee from handling car taxes, the body’s own regulations limit it to real estate matters.
Goldfield (left).
Alderman Goldfield opened Wednesday’s meeting with a proposed solution: create a new committee charged with handling motor vehicle tax problems. The “Committee on Motor Vehicle Tax Review” would comprise the corporation counsel, the assessor, the tax collector, the controller, and three aldermen — the chair of the Finance Committee, the chair of the Tax Abatement Committee, and the minority leader.
Goldfield presented his plan as an efficient response to the new onslaught of car tax complaints, one in which the relevant people are all in the same room and can correct their own errors without overburdening the Tax Abatement Committee.
The plan drew almost immediate opposition. Alderman Goldson said aldermen shouldn’t be creating a new committee, which he worried would be less transparent than the Tax Abatement Committee.
“I just don’t see the need for another committee,” said Alderwoman Jackson-Brooks.
Wooster Square Alderman Michael Smart, chair of the Tax Abatement Committee, voiced the most strident, and personal, opposition. “I really feel this is a slap in the face to my committee.” He complained that he and his committee were not consulted on the proposal, which he said was designed to “neuter” a Tax Abatement Committee that has been exercising more power under his leadership than previously. “Quite frankly, Mr. President, I think it’s totally insulting.”
Goldson offered what he called “a real simple fix”: strike the committee’s prohibition on considering auto taxes and let the Tax Abatement Committee do what it’s been doing. That’s better than sending complaints back to the people who made the errors that caused them, he said.
Alderman Gerald Antunes supported the idea, as did Alderman Jorge Perez. Then a legal question bogged down the discussion: whether the committee can legally address administrative tax errors in addition to questions of abatement due to an inability to pay. Bolden said the answer to that question is not a simple one, and requires investigation of a slew of hypothetical situations.
Throughout, several alderman said they would not have to deal with so many problems if there were more competency in the assessor’s office. Perez said the state didn’t create statutes for municipal lawmakers to fix administrative tax errors “because they didn’t account for stupidity.”
After a three-hour meeting, aldermen shelved the discussion for another day. They were unable to take a vote without a quorum present.