Alexandria city staff are considering doing away with the car tax decal residents are required to affix each year and scrape off the next.

“The decal is an antiquated way of enforcing the [car] tax,” said Councilman Justin Wilson, who suggested changing the way the city enforces car tax payments. “It’s inconvenient for people having to scrape off the decal every year.”

If it does away with the decal, Alexandria would join 37 other jurisdictions in Virginia that have done so, according to a memo Wilson sent to the staff and the rest of the council. Fairfax County eliminated its decal in 2006, the first Northern Virginia jurisdiction to do so.

It’s estimated the city will receive about $16.6 million in personal property tax payments this year. Getting rid of the decal doesn’t mean the city won’t get that revenue, Wilson said. Doing so could save money, since parking enforcement staff and police officers check for decals and write tickets for cars without them.

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It would be more efficient to have city staff check Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles database for new car registrations in the city, Wilson said. Another option is to issue each car a permanent decal to show residency but check tax payments by database.

There is also a small cost to printing and mailing decals, Deputy City Manager Mark Jinks said, but it’s insubstantial when compared with the several million in delinquent fees the city takes in each year.

Staff will report back to the council by December in time for it to consider doing away with the decal in the 2009 budget, Jinks said.

mhegstad@dcexaminer.com