NM Tribal Tax Exemption Data Base

1. NM Tribal Tax Exemption Data Base

2. Blue processes are manual, green are computerized. Customers can enter information 3 ways, Tribal admin 2, Utils 1. Tax and rev works with DB admin to make sure it meets their requirements. Is there a Tribal Census DB? GIS Digital Map Search Tribal Census DB Tax& Rev oversight Tribal Admin Database Human Interface Database Digital interface (write) Database Admin Customer Utility Database Digital interface (read) 3rd Party Database

3. Overview • No single way has yet been found that would definitively identify all tax exempt tribal members on tribal lands. The current system tends to miss a substantial percentage of this population while being very labor intensive. • The goal of the third party database is to simplify the gathering of information and presentation to a range of utilities and service providers while improving the percentage of identified tax exempt individuals and connecting them to their utilities accounts. • The database must address privacy concerns and laws while using all useful data sources to present useable lists to the various service providers. • The ability to address each nations methods and concerns is crucial as is the ability to be modified to meet future needs.

4. DB FieldsItems in Red are internal only, Items in black are for output to utils/businesses • Addresses (Number, street, county, city, state, zip or PO box, county, city, state, zip) • Names • Tribe • Tax exempt codes (what taxes are exempt) • Additional Taxes (for tribe) + Rate +authority • Last 4 digits of SSN (to connect a record to a utility account) • Sources of info (map, individual, utility, tribe) • Source name (for quality control) • Date of most recent update (for quality control) • Accounts (utilities can only see their own account) • Expired (Yes/No to be used for identifying stale records) • Potential (used to identify records that have not been verified) • Expiration date (used to determine when record data becomes stale)

5. Why is it necessary for addresses to be used for identifying provider accounts? • If the mapping/GIS data feature is to be used with assumption of non-tax it will not provide any other data. As such address matching must be used if mapping is to be used. • All service providers have a billing address and only a billing address in common. • Having customers or tribal admins add all service provider account numbers for each tribal member is impractical (basically what is being done now) and so will lead to a continuation of current situation. • People know their addresses better than their account numbers. • All service providers can link billing addresses to accounts. In effect they have to be already in order to send out a bill. • Addresses are relatively stable and non confidential. • Addresses are self-checking in that all providers already act on changes to billing addresses such as moves and abandonment. (good for quality control)

6. Input from Customer/Tribal Admin:Name Date Billing addressesPhysical AddressesPhone numbersLast four digits of SSN (optional)Tribe All information is used to create a new record or to update an old one. This information can come from a form turned in to the Data base clerk or from the tribal admin via web page or through the tribes database directly. Output to the customer comes in the form of renewal notices (to verify they are still at the same address and still eligible) and correct taxing on their bills.

7. Input from Utilities:Account number Billing addressPhysical Address - optional Output to the Utilities: Addresses Account numbers Phone numbers Last four digits of SSN Notes: Input is optional and is intended to help companies that cannot find user records using billing or physical addresses. The company submits this data for all their accounts that are potentially on tribal lands. The data base looks for matches on the addresses using both existing data and the tribal map. If no match is found the data is discarded. If a match is found the account number is added to the matching record. When the company searches for the list of exempt addresses it will get back the list using account numbers that the company can use. Note that Qwest has also proposed that the utilities provide this function for themselves and that account info not be given to the third party data base.

8. Tribal Map Lookup.Output to Map :Physical AddressBilling AddressInput from Map :In tribal boundaries – Yes/NoTribe Notes: This slide refers to using BIA’s digital tribal boundaries (mapping) to Identify potential exclusions from state taxation. When a utility submits an address the data base that is not in the database it gets forwarded on to the mapping system. If the BIA maps finds the address in tribal boundaries a yes is returned and a Record is created in the database. Depending on whether the tribal addresses are assumed to be exempt or not, the record may be set as exempt or it may just be flagged for follow up, perhaps with a form letter or email to a tribal admin.

9. Input from Tax & Rev:There is no data which is liable to be needed to be put in by Tax & Rev, however they are instrumental in determining acceptable criteria, providing tax additions and determining which tribes are exempt (or not) from the many different types of state taxes due to MOU’s. As such they, in coordination with the database administrators, determine some fields construction. Output to Tax and Rev: Since Tax and Rev must do auditing of the companies and certify the data base to be an acceptable check on exemption status they should have access to all data as needed.

10. Input from Tribal Census:Yes/NoName ?Addresses Date Output to Tribal Census: Name ? Addresses Notes: A query goes out to Tribal Census whenever a company submits an address that is not found in the database. If no match is made tribal census returns no then no Records are changed. If yes the appropriate record has addresses added if missing and The date from the tribal census is placed in the record for expiry.