If you've been to any DMV office recently, you may have seen the “Tax and Tag Together” posters. Starting July 1, state residents will receive one bill for both their vehicle's property tax and tag fee.
The change has been in the works since 2005, when the North Carolina General Assembly voted to combine the registration renewal fees and property taxes into one bill. It's taken this long in order to find an efficient system that would merge collections for the Department of Revenue, DMV, DOT and all of the counties.
Under the current system, people typically wait until the last minute to pay the property tax on their vehicles. The Department of Revenue's David Baker says this will be more efficient.
"Citizens continued to wait until they needed the tag in order to pay the tax," Baker says. "Which was basically 12 months after when they purchased the tag."
If you purchase a new vehicle, you will now have the option of paying your property tax up front or you can pay the tax within 60 days to get a valid tag from the DMV.
Before 1993, the state relied on vehicle owners to list their property and send their information to the county. The county would then send a property tax bill. There was a big problem with getting people to even list the property they owned. After 1993, the system changed so that the DMV offices would send the information directly to the county so that they could send out the tax bill.