You know it’s springtime when we publish the annual list of unpaid property taxes in Forsyth County. One definition of geekdom is if you a) look forward to this publication; and b) curl up on the couch on Saturday and go through it page by page. It is short on adjectives, but highly entertaining.
Everybody who does this has the same pattern. First, they check for their own name (It was just an honest oversight!). Then they check their neighbors, and then anybody and everybody else.
The law requires the county to advertise the list, but as we reported today, it’s not just about government legalities. It’s about The Scarlet Letter as presented by the Forsyth County Commissioners Drama Club. Shame is a powerful tool. Even the government knows that.
And it’s fun for newspapers to climb aboard and write about who owes taxes. It’s not our list, we can say, we’re just reminding people that it exists. And when somebody complains, we have an easy answer: pay your taxes.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
And if they “have no bread, they can eat cake,” right?
Hi Ken,
What happens with the other counties the Journal covers?
______________________
Joe Murphy
Senior Online Content Producer
JournalNow.com
While the Journal is the only daily paper in many of the counties we cover, there are weeklies and the like where these lists would be published in those communities.
Any idea when newspapers started publishing these lists? I know it’s been a long time.
This helps some to remember how much they own.
I asked because the information could make for a couple of interesting charts: Total county population vs. # of delinquent taxpayers ... that, and Average debt owed by county. If you wanted to get crazy with the data then you could start breaking it down for commercial vs. residential owners, or look up the addresses and get some rural vs. urban numbers.
______________________
Joe Murphy
Senior Online Content Producer
JournalNow.com
Post a comment
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.