This Absurd Tax Is the Very Reason People Are Fleeing the Northeast
24th January 2021
Last month, I got a notice in the mail from a debt collector. It was a personal property tax bill for my wife’s car — from a different state, Connecticut, which we had left three years earlier.
In Connecticut, they charge you for the privilege of owning a car, and I apparently owed taxes from 2017 — which, 814 days after they were levied, I was finding out about for the first time.
I don’t like taxes, but I always pay them. Had I known about this one, I’d have paid it, too. (The total fee was $250 — $150 for the tax, $70 for interest, and $30 in debt collection fees.) But I didn’t know about it, because, for three years, I was never told. Despite having my mail forwarded for a year and having family members who still live in the house we left, I didn’t receive a single letter or notice. Now, I had a debt collector’s letter in my hand.
January 25th, 2021 at 10:35
My wife received a tax bill from California nearly 20 years after she left. Turned out after I investigated, the state had actually owed her a small amount of money. Of course, the state was hoping for penalties and interest. I proposed we all drop it and to my surprise they agreed.