Posted on: Thursday, August 19, 2004
BUREAUCRACY BUSTER
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By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
When Conrad and Elsie Palafox of 'Aiea bought a new car four years ago, they donated their 1986 Toyota Camry to their favorite charity, the Hawaiian Humane Society. They got a nice thank-you, took the tax deduction and didn't think much more about it.
Until June, that is, when they were told they had racked up nine parking tickets on the car — two years after giving it away.
The Palafoxes were victims of a bureaucratic glitch that stained their driving record, stalled their application for car insurance and left them liable for $495 in traffic fines for violations committed by someone else.
Conrad Palafox was able to untangle the mistake, but only after spending nearly five hours one day bouncing between seven stops at various government agency counters.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser The Palafoxes felt they got burned by a good deed and want to warn others to be careful.
The city and state agencies responsible for keeping those records have apologized.
The popularity of donating vehicles to charity is increasing, the Internal Revenue Service says.
Nationwide, 1 of every 175 individual tax returns for 2000 claimed a tax deduction for a vehicle donation, the Government Accounting Office estimates. These donations were valued at about $2.5 billion.
Conrad Palafox, 68, a retired Pearl Harbor pipefitter supervisor, considers himself a pretty law-abiding person. He said his only parking tickets had been two for parking too long at the airport as he loaded and unloaded a wheelchair. He learned he had a problem when he switched car insurers and needed to show an abstract, or traffic history, to the new company as part of the application.
The mixup happened when the state Traffic Violations Bureau failed to link the parking tickets to the person who owned the car at the time. By default, the tickets showed up on the Palafoxes' record.
"It's an error that should have been caught," said Carol Nakagami, court administrator for the Traffic Violations Bureau. She said she was sorry about what happened to the Palafoxes. Nakagami said the normal procedure is for someone from her office to check city vehicle ownership files "to make sure they send the notices of unpaid parking tickets to the right person."
A red flag should have gone up, officials said, when the person who owned the car at the time of the parking violations renewed the vehicle registration (twice), then sold the car.
Nakagami said Conrad Palafox got caught in the middle. "He didn't do anything wrong," she said.
Dennis Kamimura, city motor vehicle and licensing administrator, said, "Mr. and Mrs. Palafox did everything right. We're really very sorry about this mix-up."
For Conrad Palafox, the lesson learned was: "If you really want to be sure, you better check the ownership." Said Elsie, "We're not going to give any more cars away."
Janet Hyrne, development director at the Humane Society, apologized to the Palafoxes for the problem, but found all the correct paperwork had been filed. "It seems like it was just a fluke," she said.
Hyrne said car donations usually run smoothly. "It's a growing source of revenue for us," with about 100 cars a year donated to help the charity.
If you have a question or a problem and need help getting to the right person, you can reach The Bureaucracy Buster one of three ways:
Write to:
The Bureaucracy Buster
E-mail: buster@honoluluadvertiser.com
Phone: 535-2454 and leave a message. Be sure to give us your name and daytime telephone number in case we need more information.
Elsie Palafox said she wouldn't have been as patient as her husband. "We're still upset," she said. "Somebody's at fault somewhere."
Elsie and Conrad Palafox hold an abstract showing nine outstanding parking violations for a car they donated to charity in 2000.
The Honolulu Advertiser
605 Kapi'olani Blvd.
Honolulu, HI 96813
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| Car donation tips
Officials say these steps can help prevent problems when donating a car to charity: Submit ownership transfer papers promptly. Keep copies of all documents linked to the donation. Keep a record of the people you talk to. Make sure the charity is a qualified organization. Determine the fair market value of your car. That's the price a buyer would pay, not the full "blue book" value. For example, a car's blue book value may be $1,600, but because it needs repairs you can sell it for only $750. That would be the amount you could deduct. Get written acknowledgment of the donation from the charity. The Internal Revenue Service offers information and tips at www.irs.gov/charities; click on the link "Publication 4303: A donor's guide to car donations." Source: Hawaiian Humane Society; Internal Revenue Service |
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| Palafox's odyssey
Conrad Palafox took a bus downtown June 15 for what he thought would be a routine errand. He found himself in a bureaucratic tangle: 8 a.m.: Goes to state District Court on Alakea Street to request traffic records for his auto insurance application. He is stunned to hear he has nine unpaid parking tickets on his record. "I was blaming my wife, because I knew I didn't have no tickets," he said. 8:35 a.m.: Goes to downtown police substation, where a sergeant tells him he is in the wrong place. 9:10 a.m.: Back to District Court, where he learns the tickets have been traced to a car he gave away four years ago. "I almost fell through the window," he said. 9:50 a.m.: To the city vehicle ownership/transfer section. A clerk tells him he has to go back to District Court to get the dates on the tickets and the car license number. "I was surprised that she couldn't call by phone or go on computer to get info," he said. 10:30 a.m.: Back to District Court to get ticket dates and license number. 11:30 a.m.: Back to ownership/transfer office for ownership papers. 12:15 p.m.: Back to District Court to change ownership and correct abstract. Pay $7 for new abstract. Clerk tells him he's lucky he didn't have moving violations, because he could have been arrested for those. |
