Minnesotans have not only been waiting too long for applications to be processed by the state's vehicle registration system, they're also too often being charged the wrong amounts.
A state report released Tuesday found "significant inaccuracies" in transactions carried out through the Minnesota Licensing and Registration System (MNLARS), with problems found in new registrations for both passenger and commercial vehicles.
The report by Minnesota's legislative auditor said MNLARS overcharged some state residents and undercharged others, and the technology fixes the state has been pursuing to address chronic delays in paperwork processing won't address the billing errors. Instead, it will require policy changes and extensive work by the Department of Public Safety, according to a list of 23 recommendations.
"While MNLARS generally calculated certain types of transactions correctly, inaccurate vehicle registration data within MNLARS and user errors resulted in some owners of similar vehicles being charged different tax amounts," the report said. It did not estimate total figures for undercharges and overcharges, but in reviewing eight types of transactions, the auditors found there were potentially more than $144,000 in overcharges and more than $2.7 million in undercharges.
The auditor's review was prompted by frustration from the public, state lawmakers and others over the troubled rollout of the new MNLARS system, which debuted in July 2017 and was immediately bogged down in glitches that in many cases caused long delays at licensing offices or waits for new license plates and tabs. More than $90 million has already been spent on the new system, with many more fixes still needed.
"Too many Minnesotans have been getting fleeced for months by a system that has been broken for far too long," said Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, chairman of the House Transportation Finance Committee. "This audit finally gives us an idea of the dollars and cents literally taken from the pockets of thousands of Minnesotans."
The auditors analyzed transactions in the MNLARS system between July 24, 2017, and Feb. 28, 2018. They found many of the issues were a result of the same type of vehicles being assigned different base values. People who own a vehicle of the same make, model and year should have the same registration tax, the audit says. But differences often occur because there is not one source to determine a vehicle's base value.
For example, there were 2,055 2018 Ford F-150s entered in the system, and the pickup trucks had 130 different base values. That could result in some owners paying thousands of dollars more in taxes over the course of 10 years.