Horry County Officials actively looking for out of state tags

By Rashad Midani
WBTW News 13 Digital Journalist/Reporter
Published: August 25, 2008

The first day of school isn’t just for the students, but also for people like Field Investigator (from the Horry County Auditor’s Office), Tim Christopher. 

Christopher’s visiting several schools around Horry County to make sure parents with out of state tags are paying their property taxes.

When asked, “Do you usually find this a problem at the beginning of school years?“  Christopher says, “No, people are pretty, you know, you give them a letter, some of them are belligerent and they’ll throw it away or stuff like that, but most of the time they’ll take it and just heed our warning.“

It’s a warning that states they have 45 days to register their vehicle.  Officials say that it’s stated on the bottom of their student registration form; the same forms they list their permanent residence.

As representatives from the Horry County Auditor’s Office make their rounds around the schools in the coming days, they say the money they collect from the tags, a lot of it actually goes back to the schools.
“Every tax dollar that we collect, 65% of it goes to the schools.  So if you don’t register your car, you’re really only hurting your child, nothing else.“

Once Christopher is done at the school, he comes back to the office and run the numbers of the tags they collected and then send out notices.  For tags they can’t find, those numbers get faxed to police where they run the information.  County Officials say if they haven’t received the required personal property tax payment, they then issue another notice warning people about getting arrested.