When assessing vehicles, the following guidelines should be followed for compliance with the Streamlined Registration system. Our system will help enforce these rules. A message sent to DF&A that doesn't meet this criteria will likely be rejected by the system in Little Rock and never update the registration database.

• All vehicles sent to DF&A must have a year entered.
• Both Make and Model information needs to be entered for vehicles, especially when only a partial VIN is entered. They need this information to match the partial VIN to their full VIN.
• The VIN number field must only be used for VIN numbers. DF&A has received several messages that contain other data in the VIN field. The VIN is the key to the entire system, and this can cause problems. Specifically, some counties have been entering an unknown partial VIN, such as ?PCJON, but then putting additional information at the end of the VIN. The system then treats this as a full VIN number, since it is longer than 6 characters.
• Remember that if you are entering an item into the Vehicles screen that should not be sent to DF&A, enter the words, NON DFA into the VIN field. This will flag that item as a non-registered item and not send a message.
  

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The following information from Marla McHughes at DF&A illustrates how to determine the tax clearance status for the renewal notice. It addresses the issue of a person changing PPAN’s, either within the county or by moving to a new county.

Example 1
Jane Doe owes personal property taxes for 1999. At assessment time she assesses the vehicle in the name of John Doe under his PPAN. John Doe has paid his 1999 taxes so the system reflects a yes in the payment field. This is one way the clearance flag may be set to “yes.”

Example 2
When a taxpayer moves from one county to another the PPAN changes. On a first time assessment in a county, we return an unknown in the collection field. The second year that person assesses within that county we will return a yes, because we know that he does not owe taxes since last year was his first year to assess in the county. If the person owes taxes in another county since a new PPAN is assigned, this disassociates the old PPAN where the taxes are owed to the VIN. The system has to work this way since people buy and sell vehicles every day.

Example 3
A new owner assesses a newly acquired (used) vehicle and the assessor fails to secure the VIN at assessment time. That vehicle may still be tied to the previous owner at the time that the renewal notice was printed. All State Revenue Offices have been instructed if a renewal notice reflects a Y and the system reflects an N to override the system and process the renewal.

This is what causes the most problems. We cannot turn a taxpayer away for lack of evidence of a clearance when we have sent out a renewal notice telling them that they do not need to bring any supporting documents.

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Windows Personal has two features built into the program that can help you do the following:

1. View messages and
2. Print detailed reports of assessments that are sent to the state DFA system.

You can view messages by each property record that is sent to the state DFA system with the PPAN you have selected using the steps below:

1. Ordered List ItemSelect a PPAN, and then go to the property tab in the program.
2. Click on the property record you would like to view a message log on.
3. Press F9 on your keyboard or click on the F9=DFA Log button from the list of buttons at the bottom of the property list screen. A DFA Log display form will load.

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