FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 24, 2020

Governor Hutchinson's weekly radio address can be found in MP3 format and downloaded HERE.

LITTLE ROCK – Today I’d like to talk about the ways the state Revenue Office has made life easier for its customers – who are the taxpayers of Arkansas.

When I took office in January 2015, I asked agency leaders to identify state services that we could streamline and simplify. At the time, the state revenue offices offered online tag renewal, a valuable service that saved Arkansans a trip to the Revenue Office. But we thought we could do more.

So the folks at the 134 revenue offices across Arkansas put their heads together, and as of today, you can conduct nearly all of your revenue business online on a computer or a phone. You can do pretty much whatever you want while you’re on an evening walk or even watching a football game.

They call it “Skip the Trip.”

If you lose your driver’s license, a brief visit to MyDMV.Arkansas.Gov allows you to apply for a replacement, and they’ll mail it to your house.

If you want a personalized license tag, you can check to see whether another car owner already is using the name. If it is available, you can order it online.

The possibilities go on: You can check the status of your car title, transfer vehicle ownership, and calculate sales tax.

In 2018, Arkansas became one of the first states to allow complete registration of a vehicle online.

To put this in perspective, in 2017, Arkansans registered over 643,000 vehicles at revenue offices throughout the state.

Skipping the trip would save on average an hour for each registration. If only half of those registrations occurred online, Arkansans would save 36 years of driving and standing in line.

There is a benefit in this for those who prefer personal interaction – the lines will be considerably shorter.

Give it a try at MyDMV.Arkansas.Gov. The website is taxpayer-friendly and will save you time, effort, and gasoline. The website recently was honored with the Excellence in Government Partnership Award by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Time is our most valuable commodity. Once you’ve used it, you can’t get it back. Skip the trip and you’ll have more time to do something important.

Don’t be like the gentleman who thought he preferred to stand in line and conduct his business in person. Last year, he decided to go the high-tech route. When his new stickers arrived in his mailbox, he quickly realized he should have skipped the trip sooner.