Tax collector asks committee to let Controller cancel certain uncollectible unsecured personal property tax debt

The San Francisco tax collector told the Rules Committee on March 2 that the office seeks authority to let the Controller cancel narrowly defined categories of uncollectible unsecured personal property tax debt to avoid importing tens of thousands of bad accounts into a new property-tax system.

"This ordinance would allow for only cancellation of uncollectible, erroneous unsecured personal property debt," David Augustine said, distinguishing the proposal from any cancellation of secured real-estate taxes. Augustine listed three categories proposed for automatic cancellation: accounts over 30 years old (outside the statute of limitations); amounts discharged in bankruptcy; and accounts where a lien was never filed or renewed. He said the affected pool is relatively small compared with the city's overall collection effort but still meaningful for system migration: about 35,000 accounts over various tranches and roughly $170,000,000 collected annually in unsecured personal property taxes, with the office collecting about 95% of accounts.

Augustine said the delegation would not change the board's authority to cancel accounts that fall outside the preset criteria; those would still be returned to the Board. Committee members asked clarifying questions; public comment was not offered. The committee voted to send the ordinance to the full Board with a positive recommendation "without objection."