The Department of Motor Vehicles, the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers and the Connecticut Tax Collectors Association today asked residents receiving motor vehicle tax bills to review them carefully to ensure the correct information is listed on the bills from their municipalities.

 DMV and municipal officials are taking this pro-active approach to check bills following DMV’s conversion of data from an old registration computer system to the new one last August. DMV and the associations have estimated that about 50,000 vehicle owners could be affected.

 “We are advising residents early so that they look immediately at their tax bills and make any necessary changes before paying them. All of us are being pro-consumer in this effort and wanting to prevent inconveniences for taxpayers,” said DMV Commissioner Michael Bzdyra.

 Data in that old system was compiled from customers over decades and could have old addresses never changed by someone who moved or incorrect information given when registering a vehicle. DMV has collected registration information for decades in a variety of inconsistent ways. The new computer system attempts to standardize information so that there is consistency in DMV records as well as those given to towns for tax billing purposes.

 DMV and the municipalities across the state are also working to resolve inconsistencies among some residents’ having both mailing addresses as well as separate “domicile” listings for a different municipality where their vehicle is garaged (e.g.,someone lives in one town, but keeps a vehicle in another town where it is most often used).

 "The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles, the Connecticut Association of Assessing Offices, and the Connecticut Tax Collectors' Association have worked for several months at addressing these discrepancies.  While we have made a great deal of progress in addressing these issues, and have significantly reduced them, there will be some cases where people receive tax bills from the wrong town.  It is important that if anyone receives a tax bill from the wrong town, they contact the town that issued the bill as soon as possible so that the bill can be forwarded to the correct town.  If anyone receives a tax bill from the wrong town, it is important that they do not ignore the incorrect tax bill," said John Rainaldi, president of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers (CAAO) and Launa M. Goslee, president of the Connecticut Tax Collector’s Association.

 Officials advised residents that if they received a tax bill from a municipality in which they did not reside or in which they did not have a vehicle (both as of October 1, 2015), they need to contact their assessor to request a transfer to the correct town or city of residency as of October 1, 2015.

Customers who need information to make a registration address change at DMV can go to ct.gov/dmv/changeaddress or call DMV at 860-263-5700.

 There are also several services customers can obtain online at DMV now. These include verifying whether they have a delinquent motor vehicle property tax, emissions and insurance compliance issues as well as renewing vehicle registrations, reprinting registrations and canceling registrations. Go to ct.gov/dmv/online today to see what is offered.