The Nevada Supreme Court building Monday, March 4, 2019.
Photo: David Calvert / The Nevada Independent
Nevada Appeal Capitol Bureau
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
The Department of Motor Vehicles will refund the $1 technology fee collected on most transactions over the past year in cash.
The plan was approved by the Legislative Interim Finance Committee last week.
DMV Director Julie Butler said the plan is much cheaper than cutting $1 checks to all DMV customers. That would have cost the agency $7.8 million in administrative fees to refund some $6 million in fees.
Handing customers cash will reduce the administrative costs to just $2.3 million. Most of those costs will be to commercial customers who will get their fee refunds by check.
The agency has to make the refunds because the Nevada Supreme Court ruled last spring that the fee was unconstitutional because Senate Democrats didn’t get a two-thirds majority vote when they passed it.
But the fee was illegally collected on almost all transactions between July 2020 and August 2021. The agency stopped collecting it in May.
Butler said no appointment is needed to collect the cash refund for each transaction a customer had at DMV. In addition, she said no proof of payment is needed because DMV can verify how much each customer is owed.
She said customers visiting DMV by appointment can collect their refunds at the same window where they are doing other business such as renewing a driver’s license or registration.
She advised it makes sense for customers to combine getting their refunds with other business that takes them to DMV.
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