by Jolene Toves

Guam - It seems the Department of Revenue & Taxation isn't only going to have to figure out how to pay out tax refunds on time, but also figure out how to collect taxes owed to the Government of Guam. As tax season approaches Senator Michael San Nicolas, Governor Eddie Calvo and Rev & Tax director John Camacho met this week to discuss options to go after collecting more than $100 million in overdue taxes from taxpayers.

The senator told KUAM News, "The governor and I share the same perspective in these collections as timely as possible is very important for our community we have a lot of high dollar needs out there people are owed back pay, we have tax refunds that will be coming due we have court orders that need to be paid out so we need to make sure we identify as much money as possible that is out there."

Of the $100 million in owed taxes, $91 million is between one and ten years overdue; out of the $91 million, $7.9 million is within two years of breaching the statute of limitations for collection. Senator San Nicolas is looking into ways to collect that money, adding, "What we are looking at doing is freezing the assets of people who are not willing to pay their taxes or not making any effort to pay them so freezing their bank accounts, their vehicle registration, freezing the renewal of their drivers license those kind of things we are looking at exploring."

As for Camacho, he also is trying to find ways to step up collections. "In addition to notifying them with a letter we have hundreds of letters that goes out every day for taxes as we looking at possibility of asking some revenuers to start looking at calling these tax payers and basically be more active in a sense," he said.

Camacho adds Rev & Tax has tried to collect on the million s in taxes owed through outsourcing to collection agencies, but he says there hasn't been any bidders. He does say they will still pursue that option.