![]() With that motion, the ordinance could not move forward to a vote at Monday’s meeting. Council member Brian Kerr made the motion to table the ordinance. The topic was heavily debated between the city council and staff of the city’s tax department during a Finance Committee meeting held prior to the council meeting, followed by more discussion among members. ![]() The tax department has a steady flow of residents coming in for help with filing taxes and tax questions from January through May.Īnother argument presented by the city’s tax department is that RITA does not seek enforcement against non-filers or those who are delinquent which the city tax department does. Or some residents just simply don’t understand how to navigate the software to file their taxes and they come to the tax department for help with this and to have their taxes filed. The one drawback to RITA that was pointed out by staff in the local tax department is that RITA is an online service and the many residents in the area especially the elderly don’t have access to a computer or internet. Some of the communities who currently use RITA that Mercer has spoken to include Columbiana, Wellsville, Youngstown, Salem, Euclid and Bedford. Mercer has been the person doing all the research and speaking with municipalities that use RITA to gain insight into how it was working in their communities. According to council member John Mercer, his research has found that only communities with a population of 250,000 or more can access the IRS data, so because of the population limitation of East Liverpool, the city is not eligible to access that data. RITA was being considered as a method of handling the city’s local income tax, due to its ability to have access to the federal income tax system which would allow the city to find out who was filing federal income taxes but not local taxes and be able to go after resident delinquent on or not filing local taxes. Operation of the city’s tax department remains unchanged with the tabling of the RITA ordinance, which will be revisited at a later date. The tabling will allow more time for additional research and give the city’s tax department time to gather information on software or programs that would allow staffers to do the same things RITA can do.
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