Tax collections – Your government at work!!! Post 15

It pays to be Lake County sheriff.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

By Bill Dolan bdolan@nwitimes.com 219.662.5328
Crown Point |

Rogelio “Roy” Dominguez draws more than $119,500 annually, one of the highest salaries county government has to offer- and that isn’t all.

He said he pockets an additional $52,000 to $55,000 a year in fees for collecting delinquent state taxes.

“It stems from English common law where the sheriff received a bounty. I get 10 percent up to the first $40,000, and after that amount I get 2 percent,” Dominguez said.

His fees were made public in a recent State Board of Accounts audit of his office. Tammy White, a board supervisor, said Friday that the audit concluded Dominguez is entitled to the fees but the county should publicly report them in its salary ordinance.

Dominguez said prior sheriffs used to pocket more in fees. Before 1999, the state let sheriffs collect a flat 10 percent of all delinquent taxes. In Lake County, that amounted to more than $75,000 a decade ago.

He said he could receive more money himself if, as past sheriffs used to do, he put more officers on collection duty, sanctioned aggressive collection tactics and gave successful officers perks that could be withdrawn if they became lax in enforcement.

“Past sheriffs used to send officers to the business, and they took the money right out of the cash register,” Dominguez said. “If an officer was a good tax collector, you stayed on that duty, which meant plainclothes and an unmarked car or mileage.”

Dominguez said his philosophy regarding tax collection grew from the time he handled delinquent tax collections for the state when he was a practicing attorney – prior to becoming sheriff in 2003.

“I know some of these businesses were good people who temporarily fall behind in their taxes because business is low or they have an unexpected expense and make every effort to try to pay it back,” he said.

Dominguez said it’s not his style to collect taxes with guns and badges.

“It creates a great deal of embarrassment that harms the good will of the business and causes it to shut down,” he said.

Dominguez said his staff sends out postcard notices of delinquent taxes.

Stephanie McFarland, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Revenue, said anyone who fails to heed the sheriff’s notice eventually will be turned over by her department to private collection agencies, which collect not only the back taxes but also interest and late fees.

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