Inglewood Will Tap Tax Refunds of Scofflaws Who Owe Fines : Finances: Inglewood is first California city to use state legislation allowing cities to have Franchise Tax Board deduct unpaid parking fines from state tax refund checks.

Officials in Inglewood have a message for people with outstanding parking tickets: Pay up or we’ll take it out of your taxes.

In what is a first for a California city, Inglewood is taking advantage of new legislation that allows municipalities to have the state Franchise Tax Board deduct unpaid parking fines from state tax refund checks.

“What we want to establish out there is the attitude that if you get (a ticket), you have to pay it,” said James R. Nyman, head of the city’s computer information network and the one who set up the collection system.

Currently, Nyman said, only about half the 90,000 to 100,000 parking tickets issued in the city each year are paid on time, generating about $2.4 million annually.

To initiate the crackdown, city computers sorted through the names of 4,000 delinquent parking violators and came up with a list of 743 people who had at least five tickets and owed at least $350 in fines. Nyman said the city should recover an additional $60,000 from these people this year--either by forcing them to voluntarily pay their fines, or by deducting what they owe from tax refunds.

Nyman said the offenders were sent notices earlier this month warning them to pay the fines or have their names sent to the state tax board.

“This year we’re only sending out (notices) to the worst offenders,” Nyman said. “Our intention is not to get a person with just a stray ticket. Our intention is to get the obvious offenders.”

One offender on the list owes $2,800 on about 40 parking tickets, Nyman said.

Nyman said he is certain that the notices are getting to the bulk of the offenders because only 5% of the letters have been returned by the post office. For its trouble, the state will get 31 cents from the city for every name it checks against the list of people getting income tax refunds.

In recent years, as governments have struggled with shrinking revenues, many have begun beefing up their collection systems for various types of fines and penalties.

Some counties, for example, are now tracking down fathers who have defaulted on court-ordered child support by sending names of the offenders to the state tax board to be checked against tax refund checks.

Likewise, the names of errant fathers are now routinely checked against the names of those who get lucky in the state lottery, Nyman said.

In the case of a dual offender--a man who is both delinquent on his child support payments and his parking tickets--the tax refund will first go toward unpaid child support, Nyman said.

Until now, only the federal, state and county governments had the authority to attach state income tax refunds. But cities got into the act with the passage last year of the Trial Court Funding and Reorganization Act passed by the state Legislature, allowing both cities and counties to use income tax refunds to collect on court-ordered payments such as parking fines.

Inglewood was the only city to file by the deadline last October to participate in the collection program, said James Shepherd, assistant public affairs officer for the tax board.

“I think probably we’ll get a lot more this year,” Shepherd said, adding that city officials throughout the state are just becoming aware of the law.

Shepherd said that about 14 million people are expected to file income tax returns in California this year. Of those, he said, about 8 million will get tax refund checks, which averaged $285 last year.