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Pol to diplomats: Pay up!

By David Freedlander | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

5:01 PM EDT, July 6, 2008

Queens councilman Eric Gioia is calling on the city's biggest diplomatic scofflaws to pony up the $75 million they owe in unpaid parking tickets and back property taxes.

"For repeat offenders who continue to abuse the hospitality of our city, the free ride is over," Gioia (D-Sunnyside) said yesterday. "New York faces tough budget questions every year, and this is a quick way for New York to collect."

He called on the city to begin towing the cars of missions that have more than $5,000 of unpaid parking tickets and to cut off the power and water to consulates that owe property taxes.

amNewYork recently reported that more than a decade after Mayor Rudy Giuliani began a crackdown on diplomatic scofflaws, the city is still owed more than $18 million.

According to the city's Department of Finance, Egypt and Kuwait are the worst culprits, owing more than $3 million in unpaid parking tickets. India, Mongolia, and the Philippines were the main diplomatic deadbeats in paying property tax.

Last year, the city went to the U.S. Supreme Court over property taxes owed by Mongolia and India. The justices ruled that foreign nations are not immune to paying all real estate taxes.