Woman claims clerk’s office charged her extra tax for years

SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — A Shelby County woman has some advice for you — check your vehicle registration.

She says the clerk’s office has been charging her a city fee for several years even though she’s lived in unincorporated Shelby County.

“I got on the website, because I usually pay on the website,” Kim Moore said.

That’s when she noticed a $35 municipal tax on her vehicle registration. The municipal code stating she lives in Bartlett even though she doesn’t.

“I should only pay county wheel tax,” she said.

Moore moved out of Bartlett in 2018. Her new address, confirmed on the county’s website, is in unincorporated Shelby county.

She decided to go to the Shelby County Clerk’s Office.

“She goes, ‘Don’t you live in Bartlett?’ I said, ‘No, ma’am. I don’t.’ I said I live in Shelby County. She said, ‘Well you’re going to have to get proof of that,'” Moore said.

Moore said she already provided proof when she moved. She said that’s why the clerk has her new address listed on her vehicle registration and why she says they’ve mailed her renewal reminders to her county address.

“They refused to take it off,” she said. “To be honest, I think it’s a hot mess.”

Moore said she ended up paying the city fee, because it would end up costing her more to take off work again and go back down to the clerk’s office to show them the proof that again she said already provided.

When she got home, she dug up her previous registration certificates and noticed she’s been paying that municipal tax since for the past four years.

Someone may have tried to fix it in 2020. It lists Shelby County in the municipal code, but she was still charged the municipal fee.

Moore admits she didn’t do her due diligence. She never looked at the fees. She just paid it.

When the wheel tax increased and she saw this year’s total, she questioned why the total now reached almost $150.

“There might be some people out there paying it, overpaying and just not realizing what all of this means,” she said.

We asked Clerk Wanda Halbert about it and she said that “customers are always welcome to contact our team, including executive leadership.”

As for Moore, Halbert said the office is “looking into the customer’s concern” and “will give her an update asap.”

We also reached out to the county commissioner in Moore’s district to see if he’s received any similar complaints. He said he’d look into it and try to help.

We reached out to the attorney who filed a recent ouster petition on behalf of the county attorney. He told us he wasn’t doing interviews at this point.

In the complaint, he cited issues with inaccurate and untimely financial reporting, problems with building leases and staffing and deficiencies found by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office.

A majority of the issues were also cited in another ouster proceeding filed in May. It was dismissed due to a technicality.

The Hamilton County District Attorney handled the case, as requested by the Shelby County DA.

“She does not want to do her job well. She’s extremely paranoid everyone is out to get her,” Hamilton County DA Coty Wamp said.

Halbert declined to comment about the latest filing.

Her attorney in the first proceeding stressed then Clerk Halbert was getting levels staffing up.

“The clerk is authorized to do what she needs to do to run her office in regards to citizens,” her attorney Darrell O’Neal said.

According to the county’s website, those who live in the county should be paying $81 for a tag renewal.

Moore said she’s emailed the clerk’s office, but hasn’t heard back. As of now, she’s chalking this up as a learning lesson.

“Check your tag’s registration. Look at every blot and know what all the abbreviations mean. It could be costing you money like it did me,” Moore said.

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