Nearly 48,000 Arlington vehicles will not be charged any car tax this year, an increase of 32% from 2025, based on tax changes made by County Board members during the fiscal 2027 budget process.
For those that will be taxed, some owners will pay less while others — particularly those owning clean-energy vehicles — will pay more.
A fraudulent email impersonating Arlington County Treasurer Carla de la Pava is targeting local businesses and nonprofits, according to the Treasurer’s Office.
The emails use de la Pava’s name but come from an unrelated Gmail address. They carry the subject line “Arlington County Virginia/Vendor Payment” and ask recipients to help pay a vendor invoice, according to a press release from the office.
Arlington’s treasurer is taking a more conservative stance on investments amid fears that local tax revenue could run short in the coming months.
“I have decided to make all of our investments fairly short-term,” Carla de la Pava told County Board members at a March 3 budget hearing. “Right now, it has been the wisest [action]. The safety of having liquid assets during this time of chaos has been really important.”
As Arlington gears up to potentially explore governance-change options, the fate of two constitutional offices may hang in the balance.
Not yet publicly discussed much by governance-change advocates: whether to go the Fairfax County route, folding operations of Arlington’s treasurer and commissioner of revenue into the county government’s general operations.
The Arlington treasurer’s office is seeking to curb a growing rate of tax delinquency with new tools and additional personnel.
The addition of QR codes on delinquency letters, in combination with the hiring of two new collection employees, leaves Chief Deputy Treasurer Kim Rucker optimistic about the possibility of lowering the delinquency rate despite challenging economic times.
An entire professional broadcast studio is going up for auction because of about $70,000 in unpaid debt at Arlington Independent Media, an official says.
Hundreds of professional-grade items — including camcorders, cameras, MacBooks, iPads, microphones, audio mixers, audio recorders, turntables, lighting kits, TVs, desks, chairs, broadcasting equipment and a 360-degree photo booth kit — are up for bidding over the next few weeks.
The process of licensing a dog in Arlington is less onerous than it used to be, but efforts are underway to streamline it further.
Until recent years, dog owners were required to come to the treasurer’s office in person to present the required rabies certificate and pay the fee. More recently, an online option was added, but it remains a two-step process.
Arlington’s tax-delinquency rate ticked up slightly this year, despite the county treasurer’s office’s efforts to address high rates of late payment and non-payment of vehicle taxes.
The delinquency rate of 0.18% was up from 0.17% last year and above the goal of 0.16% set by Treasurer Carla de la Pava.
The increasing cost of vehicles was a key driver in Arlington’s tax-delinquency rate showing a rare year-over-year uptick in new data.
“Many people do not contemplate the annual tax consequences” of vehicle ownership, county Treasurer Carla de la Pava said in a Tuesday briefing to the Arlington County Board.
Last year’s soaring car tax values resulted in more people behind on their vehicle taxes, according to Arlington’s Treasurer.
Despite the uptick, Arlington County ended the 2023 fiscal year with historically few people behind on their taxes, Treasurer Carla de la Pava told the Arlington County Board on Tuesday.
Items from Rāko Coffee in Courthouse were put up for public auction by Arlington County tax authorities.
ARLnow reported last month that Rāko Coffee at 2016 Wilson Blvd had closed, though a sign claimed the closure was “temporary” and blamed a broken espresso machine.
(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) A printing vendor accidentally mailed tens of thousands of duplicate property tax bills to Arlington property owners, the county said today.
ARLnow started getting reports from readers earlier this week about the rogue mailings.
