OKLAHOMA CITY -- Thousands of people are getting new roofs after the hail storm and tornadoes this year. But one local roofer says some of the out-of-town companies that are fixing many roofs may not be paying state taxes. The law is that if you make money in Oklahoma, the tax from those profits must stay here. The reality is that money made here often leaves and goes unreported.
To bring this problem to light, Red River Roofing came up with a list of companies they say may not be paying state taxes.
Trevor Thomson works for the company and says, "What we did was kind of an in-house little research and we just, with a very little effort, identified 284 companies in the area and what we were looking for specifically was deceptive trade practices."
They checked the companies against the list on the OK Secretary of State's Web site and noticed a good number weren't registered.
Thomson says, "We started putting things together and thought, 'wait a minute, if a third of these companies from out of state or here locally are not even showing up on that radar, then it's a fair assumption that a good percentage of those companies are not even paying taxes on the revenue that they are generating.' There's a lot of interesting implications as far the economy here not benefiting from that revenue, maybe taking it out of state."
That means while they take money from Oklahomans for jobs in Oklahoma, it's not clear where that money ends up going.
Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill recently that would require roofing companies to register with the state.
That requirement takes effect November 1.
To bring this problem to light, Red River Roofing came up with a list of companies they say may not be paying state taxes.
Trevor Thomson works for the company and says, "What we did was kind of an in-house little research and we just, with a very little effort, identified 284 companies in the area and what we were looking for specifically was deceptive trade practices."
They checked the companies against the list on the OK Secretary of State's Web site and noticed a good number weren't registered.
Thomson says, "We started putting things together and thought, 'wait a minute, if a third of these companies from out of state or here locally are not even showing up on that radar, then it's a fair assumption that a good percentage of those companies are not even paying taxes on the revenue that they are generating.' There's a lot of interesting implications as far the economy here not benefiting from that revenue, maybe taking it out of state."
That means while they take money from Oklahomans for jobs in Oklahoma, it's not clear where that money ends up going.
Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill recently that would require roofing companies to register with the state.
That requirement takes effect November 1.
