About 200 businesses in Floyd County are listed on a new state Web site as owing the Indiana Department of Revenue sales tax collections.

State law changed Jan. 1 and now requires the department to post online all tax-delinquent businesses that have expired registered retail merchant certificates due to the failure to pay the sales tax.

Businesses from all counties in Indiana that owe sales tax can be viewed at www.in.gov/dor.

When a customer pays for an item, the owner of the business is charged with keeping the sales tax separate from the profit to pay to the state. If the business fails to pay what is owed, they become delinquent.

“Sales tax is a trust tax, meaning the business collects it straight from the consumer and passes it directly to the state,” Revenue Commissioner John Eckart stated in a news release.

“This money doesn’t come from the businesses’ pockets, and it’s not supposed to be used to fund their operations.”

As explained by Stephanie McFarland, public relations director for the revenue department, businesses on the list could be prosecuted for operating without a retail certificate if the back-owed taxes aren’t paid.

If a business is current in paying its sales taxes, it doesn’t have to do anything to renew its certificate.

Department representatives typically notify the businesses directly by visiting their establishments 30 days before their final warning expires, McFarland said.

Collection agencies and law enforcement then handle the businesses, she continued. When it gets to that point, an agent from the revenue department places a sign on the establishment’s door informing customers the business is no longer lawfully allowed to operate in Indiana.

If the business owner still doesn’t cooperate, the state can file class B misdemeanor charges against them punishable by a fine or even jail time. If the business closes, the owed revenue is still demanded.

“They still have that tax over their head, they’re still responsible for paying that,” McFarland said.

In Floyd, the delinquent businesses owe a total of $527,000 in sales tax — money that would be in the state’s general fund. Exact dues owed by individual businesses are not allowed to be released by the department, but statewide the total in unpaid sales tax is more than $100 million.

There are approximately 350 Clark County businesses on the list equating to $2.4 million in uncollected sales tax.

“It’s really important for consumers to be aware of that list,” McFarland said, adding the unpaid taxes “certainly have an impact on the government being able to fund the programs that are close to the taxpayers’ hearts.”

About 75 percent of the general fund is comprised of income and sales tax.

While some claim to be wrongfully included, McFarland said 99.9 percent of the businesses on the list belong there.

Since the link went up, McFarland said there have been more than 1 million hits to the Web site and 64 phone calls to the revenue office from businesses on the list.

The revenue department is still compiling numbers to determine the success of the Web site.

“We consider it a start. I don’t know if at this point we would tie any positive or negative adjectives to that,” McFarland said.