CN - Y2K computer slip-up sends double car tax bills to 22,000

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2001-01-03

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ A Y2K computer glitch in the state Department of Motor Vehicles led to some 22,000 people being double-billed for motor vehicle taxes.

Some records were accidentally duplicated on the supplemental tax list, a problem DMV spokesman Bill Seymour Tuesday attributed to a year 2000 computer problem.

The files were registration renewals entered into the DMV's computer system between Oct. 2, 1999, and the end of November 1999.

Rather than recognizing them as registration renewals, the antiquated DMV computer classified them as new registrations and placed them on the supplemental list.

The computer software and data were moved to a year 2000 compliant computer system in December 1999, ending the problem.

The DMV was not aware of the problem until September, when local assessors began to notice the same registration information on their motor vehicle tax lists and on the supplemental list they received for vehicles purchased between Oct. 2, 1999, and July 31, 2000.

``We didn't see it. We didn't know it happened. We didn't know it was a problem until it corrected itself,'' Seymour said Tuesday.

The DMV sent out a corrected list in November allowing assessors to remove the accidentally duplicated files. Because people buy and sell cars throughout the year, DMV continually updates its records, which it then provides to local tax officials.

While assessors managed to remove many of the 22,000 files accidentally included on the supplemental tax list, some slipped through, mostly those of people whose name begin with the letter S.

The DMV does registration renewals alphabetically, and those with names beginning with S were due for renewal around the time the computer problem occurred, Seymour said.

The News Times

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002


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