The tax man cometh

West Haven (WTNH) - The city of West Haven is scouring the city for out-of-state license plates and those who may be trying to dodge the tax man.

When West Haven's assessor and deputy assessor are driving around town, they take notes when they see an out-of-state license plate. If they keep seeing it, it probably means someone is not obeying the law.

"There's 60 days that you have to register your vehicle in whatever municipality that you're located in," said Doug Kidd, West Haven Deputy Tax Assessor.

Cities and towns lose thousands of dollars every year from people trying to dodge car taxes by keeping their car registered somewhere that doesn't have a car tax. West Haven is trying hard to track them down.

"We hired someone to go around at night and on weekends to find cars. They would give us the location of the property, the type of car that was at the property and where it was registered," said Kidd.

That was last summer. Ever since, city officials have been keeping track of those cars. Some of the owners had legitimate explanations.

"In many cases, people were having their car repaired and they had a rental car, they had someone visiting from out of state, so they would tell us and we would take it from there," said Kidd.

But if the cars stuck around without a good explanation, the City started sending the owners tax bills. It's only fair to all the other residents who pay their taxes, and to the City.

"They're on our roads, they're here in West Haven so we're entitled to it, we need the money. We want to show the people of West Haven that we're doing everything we can," said Mayor John Picard (D-West Haven).