Montgomery County Inspector General (IG) Megan Davey Limarzi issued a report Tuesday criticizing the county for not establishing a way to identify all retailers that charge for plastic bags, thereby making it difficult to know how many stores are complying with the regulations.
On Jan. 1, 2012, the county began requiring that certain retail establishments charge 5 cents for every plastic or paper bag they give to consumers. The idea was to control how many plastic bags end up as litter and to encourage residents to bring their own reusable bags.
In its report, the IG noted that the county had “poor administration and weak implementation of the carryout bag tax,” thereby diminishing its impact. When the Office of the IG did a sample test of county retailers, it determined that “not all were charging the mandated bag tax, not all were registered in the county’s bag tax system and some were potentially not remitting collected taxes to the county.”
Therefore, the county lost “thousands of dollars that could be used to defray the cost of litter cleanup efforts,” according to the 17-page report.
Also, because the county did not collect the necessary data, it could not determine how effective a carry bag tax is, OIG noted in the report.
County Chief Administrative Officer Rich Madaleno agreed with the findings but noted that the intent of the law was to increase awareness about the environment without creating “an undue burden” on retailers and that the law’s “underlying purpose” was not to generate additional revenue.
