Warrant MA Motor Vehicle Bills

Need to know the process and options available for processing payments for Massachusetts' Motor Vehicle (MV) bills that have been warranted.  

• Property Tax Billing 
• Motor Vehicle Excise Tax 
• Massachusetts (MA) Tax
• Warrant

Unpaid bills have been warranted and sent to a deputy collector for collection. 

There are different ways of handling Motor Vehicle bills that have been warranted depending on which entity (town/city or deputy collector/agency) collects the unpaid funds and how those funds are accounted for by the town or city. 

Resolution 1: Deputy Collector/Agency Collects the Unpaid Funds and Sends Them to the Town/City

1. Setup a Special Condition Code with the attribute Do Not Accept Payments to add to the bills when they are warranted. This Special Condition Code will make the bills unpayable unless the user has the appropriate permissions, which should prevent the town/city from making an accidental payment. To setup a Special Condition Code with this attribute, please follow the steps outlined here: Setup a Special Condition Code for use in the Post Warrant Fee program
2. A Warrant Fee Charge Code should already exists, but if one needs to be created, follow the steps here: Setup a FEE charge code for Motor Vehicle tax billing
3. Make sure that the desired Warrant Fee Charge Code is set in the Motor Vehicle Settings by following the steps found here: Change or Add the Warrant Fee for Motor Vehicle Excise Tax
4. Post the Warrant Fee and Date and add the Special Condition Code to the unpaid bills using the process detailed here: Post Warrant Fee to Motor Vehicle bills
5. The Special Condition Code added in step 4 will prevent users without the appropriate permissions from paying the warranted Motor Vehicle bills. To adjust user permissions to allow or disallow this, please have a system administrator follow the steps outlined here: Grant or restrict user permissions to override special conditions preventing payment
6. There are many ways to pay or account for payments on bills that have the Special Condition Code to not accept payments. The recommended way is outlined below. 
   1. Ask the deputy collector/agency to provide a lockbox file that contains the payments in the Standard format. For reference, this format can be found here: Standard Lockbox Import Layout
      1. Once the deputy collector/agency has provided the file with the payments, have a user with permissions to Override special conditions preventing payment import the lockbox file with the Override special conditions preventing payments option selected. This will apply the payments to the warranted bills. 
7. If Warrant Fees have already been added to bills, the Post Warrant Fee program cannot be used again. As an alternative, the Assign to Bill List functionality can be used to add the Do Not Accept Payments Special Condition Code. That process is covered here: Add Special Condition Codes to bills using Assign to Bill List

Resolution 2: Unpaid Motor Vehicle Bills Are Not Sent to a Deputy Collector/Agency and the Town/City Collects Payment

1. A Warrant Fee Charge Code should already exists, but if one needs to be created, follow the steps here: Setup a FEE charge code for Motor Vehicle tax billing
2. Make sure that the desired Warrant Fee Charge Code is set in the Motor Vehicle Settings by following the steps found here: Change or Add the Warrant Fee for Motor Vehicle Excise Tax
3. Post the Warrant Fee and the unpaid bills using the process detailed here, but do not choose a Special condition in Step 8: Post Warrant Fee to Motor Vehicle bills
4. Enter the payments as usual. 

If additional assistance is required, please contact Northeast Tax Support.