Administering Delinquent Boat Excise Penalties

November 20, 2008

For some Point customers, boat excise is an integral part of their billing software. While similar to motor vehicle excise, boat billing has its own set of rules that include tax based on boat length, time allowed for payment, and delinquency penalties.

Once a boat bill is marked as delinquent, not only does a demand fee apply but there is also a secondary penalty of $20.00 that gets assessed according to the DOR’s Division of Local Services guidelines pertaining to issuance and collection of boat excise.

To accommodate this secondary charge, Point has added some code to allow boat excise commitments to be flagged with a new charge code of BP for boat penalty. In order to implement the use of this penalty charge, however, your system will require a simple program update from Point Software. To obtain it, contact Customer Service at 1.800.368.9538.

Once the update is made, you will be able to add the penalty by using the boat penalty (BP) flag code. You may issue a demand notice including the interest, demand and penalty charges when at least two days have passed from the boat excise due date. Those notices will then include the demand fee and the penalty amount consistent with boat excise.

For more information on boat excise bills, refer to Informational Guideline Release (IGR) No. 04-211. You can find it on the Web at:
http://www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dls/publ/igr/2004/
igr04_211.pdf