Dropping businesses from the Warren County personal property tax rolls as soon as possible if they go out of business might be the best way to stop the flow of overdue tax bills, officials said this week.

Figures released by the county in October showed more than $1.6 million owed by more than 100 individual parcels going back three tax years. In most cases, the personal property is inventory owned by businesses.

“It is the business owners’ responsibility to let us know if they’d had any changes, or if the business is closed,” Tax Assessor Angela Brown told county supervisors when the topic took up 35 minutes of Monday’s board meeting. “And that’s the only way we will know.”

In Mississippi, property may be seized and the doors to a business locked by the sheriff if taxes aren’t paid in a timely manner and authorities believe a debtor will flee without paying taxes on inventory, referred to as personal property. A distress warrant is issued beforehand.

Sheriff Martin Pace said his office received 81 such warrants in October, with 23 being served. Of those served, 12 were assigned to entities that were out of business or had no building on the listed property at all. Another five had incomplete addresses, Pace said.

Deputies “stand down” when a circuit court administrator calls to confirm a debt has been paid, Pace said. Traditionally, limited time and resources have kept servings slower than supervisors would like, and Pace indicated the current spike is no different.

“The sheriff’s office averages around 2,300 calls for service a month,” Pace said. “During that same month, we made 60 arrests, investigated 18 motor vehicle accidents and had 170 pieces of process to serve on top of patrolling the county. We’re working as fast and efficiently as we can.”

Brown said her office mails forms to businesses annually to gauge changes in name, address or other pertinent information. The form is due April 1, Brown said.

Breakdowns abound in keeping that system intact, however. The Tax Collector’s Office, which hands over the warrants to the sheriff’s department and holds tax sales on real property each August, is visited often by business owners who take word of ceasing operations face-to-face, only to still get a bill in the mail.

“But, we’ve had people coming back saying that they have spoken to someone in the assessor’s office and told them two years ago they no longer have their business and they’re still getting bills,” Tax Assessor Antonia Flaggs Jones said, adding she has created her own form to track closed businesses and delivered “several” last week to deputy tax assessors. “It is a problem with communication.”

Eleven owners of parcels on the delinquency list had come in to discuss payment plans, Flaggs Jones said.

Supervisors and Brown, whose office is charged with adding or deleting property of any kind from the rolls, said more formal board orders to subtract closed businesses were in the offing.

“Do an email to double-check behind each other,” Board President Bill Lauderdale said. “When you see the same (businesses) on here time and again, there’s no excuse for that. They’re competing against people who are paying their taxes. That shouldn’t happen.”

The statute harkens to the English origins of American law and to the time in Mississippi when sheriff and tax collector was one job. More commonly put into action is the process for dealing with delinquent real property taxes, which involves auctions on the amounts owed. Owners have three years to redeem titles and pay amounts due, plus interest.