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An audit firm will conduct in-depth checks of 53 national and international companies that do business in Pinellas to look for underreporting of property.
By MONIQUE FIELDS
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2001
Pinellas County officials don't believe every local business is paying its fair share of taxes.
Every desk, chair and cash register carries a taxable value, and the county wants to make sure it receives its due -- which officials estimate could be as much as $400,000 a year.
"It's money we don't now have in the county," said County Property Appraiser Jim Smith.
The Pinellas County Commission set aside $50,000 on Tuesday to hire Tax Management Services, a Charlotte, N.C.-based audit firm, to conduct in-depth audits of national and international companies that do business in the county and identify overreporting and underreporting of property.
The firm will randomly target 53 businesses. Tax Management Services will visit out-of-state headquarters, search their accounting records for property and report their findings to the county.
The auditing firm will make it easier for the county to keep track of what property lies within its borders, officials said.
Each year, it is relatively easy for the county to appraise land and any buildings on that land. But it is more difficult to assess how much taxable property, such as cash registers, shelving and desks, is in a building.
"We don't have anybody who is qualified to go out and audit companies all over the county," Smith said.
Smith suggested the county employ the firm after he learned it had uncovered more than $250-million in underreported property and yielded nearly $6-million in additional tax revenue for other Florida counties in recent years.
One of those clients was Orange County, which paid the firm $100,000 for two years of service before deciding its county appraisers could do the jobs themselves.
"They did what they were paid to do, (but) one of the things that we found is we also had to expand a great deal of manpower and resources to work with them," said Kevin Hardester, assistant county property appraiser in Orange County.
Smith estimated the company could find about $10-million in underreported property in Pinellas County this year and net between $200,000 and $400,000 in tax revenues.
"It would spread the wealth," Smith said. "It would certainly be a break for other businesses. It would be a break for residents."
Several tax agencies, including the Pinellas County School Board, Swiftmud and Juvenile Welfare Board would reap the benefits of additional funds.