2026: Episode 7 - What's New In Revenue

We spend a few minutes with Jefferson County Director of Revenue Scott Moore and discuss how the department is increasing its online offerings so customers can do more online and not spend time waiting in line. 

• Businesses can renew their license online at srt.jccal.org
• Fill out a business license application online at RevenueBL.jccal.org
• And pay Alcohol Beverage Taxes online at srt.jccal.org
• They are also piloting a tag renewal kiosk in Hoover along with a queuing system that let's you sit and wait for an agent to be ready instead of waiting in line

Also, Scott explains how your car value is set for your tag renewal. Hint: It's set by the state, not the County. But, you can appeal the value through the Board of Equalization. 

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:18

Welcome everybody to the Jefferson County Podcast for the People. I'm your host today, Helen Hays. I'm the director of public information for Jefferson County. And with us today, I have Scott Moore, who's been with us before. He is the director of revenue. And he's been with the county a really long time in a number of different capacities. All things revenue is what we're talking about today. And I I titled our meeting today, The Wonderful World of Revenue. Scott, how do you like that?

Speaker 0:47

Sounds great. I love it.

Speaker 1 0:50

So the first thing, this is the time of year that gets really busy for you guys. It's not just tag renewals and everything, it gets into business license renewal time. And you guys started, I think it's been two years now where people can renew their business license online. Talk a little bit about that and how easy it is to do.

Speaker 1:11

Yeah, it's very simple. The taxpayer can just go online and and basically put their account number, their federal ID number in there. It'll link their account. I mean, it's a real simple process. It takes you to the um licenses you were already set up for. So you can renew those with ease. Uh last year we had uh 50% of businesses renew online, which was more than the year before because it was right at 33% the year before. So that's that's increased drastically over the last year, and we hope to continue that increase.

Speaker 1 1:46

It just saves people a trip to the courthouse, right?

Speaker 1:49

It does. Uh we don't want them to have to come down here and and fill out paper forms and write checks and those sorts of things. We want them doing what they do best, and that's running their business, not driving down to the courthouse to complete complete paper forms. And to add to that, this this year we've added an online registration process. So if they've added a branch location since last year, uh they can go online and do that um online application form. We we've got that set up out there at revenuebl.jcal.org. They can go in there and fill out that business license application. We will send them a link to pay that license so they don't have to come in, do anything. We may, you know, a restaurant, we may have to send a follow-up email for them to provide a you know current health permit or something like that. But it can pretty much be done online.

Speaker 1 2:43

That's fantastic. And I know that a lot of the businesses in the county really appreciate the ease um of doing things online, and the you guys really work to improve that. Another thing you guys added this year that um businesses can do online is the alcohol and beverage tax, right?

Speaker 3:03

Correct. There's an alcoholic beverage tax in Jefferson County that's a 6% monthly tax on the sale of hard liquor and mixed drinks. Most taxes can be filed through the state of Alabama's My Alabama taxes website, but this is one that the state, it never got included in the legislation, along with several other taxes. So we had the most filers filing this tax. So we started there and added this tax uh a couple months ago. It's been going really, really well. We're we're up over 30% of businesses filing that tax online. The main point to remember with that tax is it's doing the 15th and not the 20th, because most taxes we collect are doing the 20th. So this doesn't change that. It just it just provides an easier method to make that payment where they don't have to, you know, fill out a paper form and drop it in the mail.

Speaker 1 3:50

Yeah, that sounds great. Um, and a lot easier for those folks as well. Now let's get to what I hear on social media a lot of people talking about car tag renewals. Um and we try to remind people each month whatever their initial is and their month to renew that that's coming up. Um, but we've got some new things in the city of Hoover that you guys are checking out at our Hoover satellite location. There's a kiosk and a queuing system. Can you talk a little bit about testing out those systems and how is it working?

Speaker 4:23

Certainly, it it's it's doing great. I mean, customer feedback reviews that we've gotten for those systems is over 90%. So we got 90% positive feedback on those. I think the customers like it. The employees love it because they don't have to verbally call out next customer window 12. They can just push a button and that cues in the next customer. But basically the customer will just come in and select one of five or six items there, you know, car tag renewal, title, driver's license, business license, those sorts of things. We didn't complicate it a whole lot, so we kept those selections at a minimum because most of those things end up in the in the same line anyway. So it basically puts them in order uh so they can sit down, relax, you know, search whatever on their cell phone, whatever they want to do, but they don't have to just sit there and either move spots in a chair till they get to the front or stand in line anymore. They really love that. Um yes, it's been great. The renewal kiosks we implemented a couple of months ago, it is a quick way to do a simple tag renewal. You can do it in less than five minutes. You don't have to wait behind customers that maybe they're doing more complex, you know, transactions like out-of state title work and those sorts of things, because you may just have a simple renewal, you know, that takes four or five minutes to do, and you're behind somebody, you know, we may have a whole counter full of people doing those kind of transactions that you know, where you could just get in and in and out. Um so we provided a uh kiosk for that. So they can come up, enter their tag number, driver's license number, it'll pull it right up, renew, and print out the decal on the spot.

Speaker 1 6:07

It'll print out your decal right there.

Speaker 6:09

Yes, correct.

Speaker 1 6:11

Oh, yeah. It doesn't have to be mailed to you.

Speaker 6:14

Nope, nope. It's it's similar to the process we use online, but it is print on demand. So we don't have to put those in the mail that it prints. We've got the same printer we use to to mail out those online renewals. Uh it prints it, you grab it out of the tray and go.

Speaker 1 6:30

Well, I know that's gonna be a big convenience for people. Um, there any hopes that maybe we can um expand those kiosks and some other locations?

Speaker 6:41

Definitely. We're looking to expand those out. We're with this was the pilot program at Hoover with that kiosk. So we're we're looking to expand that out. We're gonna purchase one more this year and probably at least one uh next budget year, if not two. So we're gonna try to roll those out. And uh optimally, I want those to be 247, 365. So once we get, you know, any any little kinks worked out, we're gonna try to make those available, you know, 24, 7, 365. Where a customer can renew, but we're looking to roll those out some of our other locations, then eventually expand it out to maybe some other facilities, county facilities, and then roll it out further from there to maybe some cities, see if they want to pilot with us and and offer those at their city halls and then go.

Speaker 1 7:31

It sounds like a a tag ATM where you can just go anytime, which I know is helpful. Some people work some crazy hours and it's hard for them to, you know, get down to the courthouse to do something like that. And of course, I know you can always do it online, but the addition of a kiosk, I think, would be helpful for a lot of folks. Yes. Some of the questions, you know, I monitor and manage all the county's social media channels, and I've seen some questions about how their car tag is valued. What is that process?

Speaker 8:05

Let's just start back at 2020. We all know we had a global pandemic at that time, and parts, used cars, new cars all became, you know, harder to find. So values started increasing where everybody was used for the most part to a car being a depreciable asset. So it would go down in value. So they would see their car tag go price, go down in value. Well, since the pandemic, it has altered the used car market mainly and forced those values up on some of those models. So what we're getting is a lot of questions on why did my value increase? It's always decreased, those sorts of things. And basically the county does not set those values. That's set by the state of Alabama. They use a vehicle valuation guide. It's like the Black Book, Kelly Blue Book, or NDA, NADA price guide. It's called price digests, and they've used that for years and years, and the company's been around for over a hundred years. They do market pricing for values of vehicles similar to those other guides. Uh the state sets those values on October 1 and use those values throughout September 30th of the next year. So it's not altering month to month. Once they set that value, it is set for the year. And the vehicles value that are 15 years or older are going to be of minimum value. The state state says anything older than 15 years is valued at $500. But the rest, 15 year newer than 15 years, go through that valuation process. And what we would like the the customers to know is that even though we don't set the value, the board of equalization will hear appeals on those. So if your car say got a lot of rust on it, the paint peeled and it's rusting, or it's got 300,000 miles on it, that sort of thing, those are things the board may entertain to reduce that value. So what we require is those people to come in, purchase that car tag at the value that would that the state set it, and then within 30 days, they can do an appeal to the board equalization, just like you would on your house value.

Speaker 1 10:20

Okay. All right. You know, understand why people, it's a confusing process. I myself, you know, my family, we've got several car tags that we're renewing at the same time. So it can it can be a little overwhelming, I imagine, for some folks, but that's a great explanation, Scott. So uh is there anything else going on with revenue? You guys are always cooking up something.

Speaker 10:42

Oh, let's see. Well, on top of uh alcoholic beverage tax, we are looking to add a few other taxes to that online portal. And I'm I'm gonna go ahead and give that online portal. It's actually the same uh portal that we use for business license renewal. They would just select alcoholic beverage tax. So it's SRT.jcal dot org. And that's where they can renew those business licenses beginning October 1st and pay those alcoholic beverage taxes beginning, you know, this month. I mean, they could pay August the tax are due here in August um this month, but be sure to do it by the 15th, or we'll be late on those alcoholic beverage tax. But we're looking to add a few other taxes that weren't included in the legislation that allowed the Alabama taxes um payments. So we're looking at adding beer tax, wine tax. There's we have a cable franchise tax, um, those sorts of things. We're looking at adding some of those other taxes to that and growing that out.

Speaker 1 11:45

I think that is all fantastic information. And we're gonna include the links to those web pages in our show notes for people who may be interested in when we share out this podcast. So thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And if anybody out there has ideas or information that they want covered in the Jefferson County Podcast for the people, you can send me an email. My email address is Hayes H A Y S H at JCCAL dot org. And we will see you next time on the Jefferson County Podcast for the people.