by Tarus Balog
Pittsboro, NC – I run a business in Pittsboro, and we have received several letters from Kep Kepley, the Chatham County Tax Administrator, asking for a complete list of our employees, their home addresses and their social security numbers.
The letter is on official letterhead, and states “This request was made per North Carolina General Statute 105-368(h)”. I looked up that statute and while it does detail when the State can garnish wages for back taxes, it does not allow for the wholesale collection of such sensitive data.
As we as a society meekly cave in to overreaching government surveillance, I was curious if any other local business owners had received such a request. It looks like Mr. Kepley has only been in the job since last September, so I am curious to know if this is a department level initiative or if he took it upon himself to use his position to request this data.
We will not be providing it short of a court order.