In all 50 states it is legal to bill for some services a fire department provides.
Despite what is being promoted on some websites, fire departments can recover many of their costs for mitigating emergencies like motor vehicle incidents, hazmat calls, car fires, false alarms, gas pipeline repair supervision, structure fires, vessel fires, environmental clean-up calls, and more - IN ALL 50 STATES.
There are anti-billing websites that claim billing is illegal in many states. These website actually cite states where we currently have active clients or states that have specific laws allowing billing for fire department services (like Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, and Arkansas). This is very misleading, to say the least. What they don't tell you is that billing may be illegal for police departments, or that some specific fire department services cannot be billed. The fact remains, fire departments can bill for some services in every state.
These websites call billing "crash-taxes", when they're not a tax at all. It's simply billing the responsible party for the mitigation cost of the service to the city or county. It is a "mitigation cost", not a tax.
We have a database of laws by state, so if a fire department wants to know their legal options to bill, you can just email or call us.
|
|