Sunflower County District 5 Supervisor and Board President Gloria Dickerson brought to the board’s attention this week that a county vehicle policy has to either be updated or be put in place for employees and elected officials.
“We need a policy and some accountability for the vehicles that the county has,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson said that she spoke with the county’s auditor, and he sent her information in regard to the rules of the use of county vehicles. She presented the information that was provided to her to board members.
“For those vehicles that everyone has, we need to know who has one and plus the taxes on them. I think we are not correctly doing them,” she said. “That is a fringe benefit to have a county vehicle, and because of the benefit, you are supposed to be paying taxes on it…There are rules around who can have a vehicle without it being taxable. All of the other vehicles are taxable. It’s called imputed income.”
Dickerson informed the board the Sheriff’s Department, fire vehicles and a few others are exempt from taxes. The county is supposed to be paying Social Security and Medicare. It is a 100% taxable benefit when supervisors get vehicles, she said.
“The personal use of a government-owned vehicle is generally a taxable fringe benefit,” Dickerson said. “Personal use includes the value of commuting in a government-owned vehicle even if the vehicle is taken home for the convenience of the employer. Meaning that you still have to pay taxes on it.”
The value of the benefits must be included in wages, but withholding of income taxes is optional for the employer Social Security and Medicare withholding is required, she said.
“I want to make sure that everyone understands we are supposed to be keeping logs on those vehicles,” she said.
Wherever the vehicle goes it’s supposed to be logged in unless it’s personal. The supervisors aren’t supposed to use vehicles for any personal errands, she said.
Dickerson said, “You are supposed to log in all of your business miles, and if you are not logging business miles, it assumes that it’s personal miles. If it’s personal miles, you have to pay taxes on that as compensation (fringe benefit).”
Sunflower County District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald said, “I would like our attorney, who is our advisor, to review that information and give us a presentation on it.”
Dickerson said that she will provide the information to the attorney.
“We have a lot of staff members that have vehicles and aren’t qualified to have a vehicle,” she said. “You can give it to them but it has to be taxable. What I am saying is we can’t buy a vehicle and allow someone to drive it and they aren’t paying taxes on the vehicle.”
Dickerson explained the County can give employees vehicles, but they will have to pay taxes on the vehicle.
Donald said, “Everyone that takes a vehicle home besides the Sheriff’s Department, $100 a month was taxed on the vehicles. We gave them a $100 increase which is $1,200 a year. If they were making $30,000 a year, now they would be making $31,200 a year. But the $100 a month is paid in by the county to the state for the tax on that vehicle.”
Dickerson let Donald know that $100 is not sufficient.
Attorney Johnny McWilliams said, “I am not sure where that figure came from, but it did, and I think it was from a negotiation with the prior clerk and the Internal revenue Service.”
Dickerson said, “We need a vehicle policy.”
Dickerson said that she will provide the example she has to McWilliams so that he can review and see how a county policy is supposed to account for county vehicles.
“We don’t have a vehicle take-home policy and we need to put one in place. We have to get in compliance,” she said.
Donald said, “Did you read the manual from front to back? Because we do have a take-home policy. You are bringing something up that we already have in place. You need to read the manual from front to back and find out.”
Dickerson said that she needs to get the county an updated vehicle policy.
Sunflower County District 2 Supervisor Riley Rice said, “Several years ago, several counties got into trouble about the same thing. Supervisors got in trouble because they weren’t reporting it, and that’s the reason why we need that policy.”
McWilliams will review the documents Dickerson presented to the board.
