Jim Poe has dedicated over 30 years’ service to the state of Indiana, where he currently serves as Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Revenue’s Motor Carrier Services Division. Graduating from Indiana State University in 1972, where he attended on a four-year college basketball scholarship, Jim came to the Indiana Department of Revenue in 1976, after leaving a four-year management role in the lumber industry.
Jim took his first leadership role with the Department of Revenue as a supervisor in the corporate-income tax section. From 1984 through 1996, Jim continued to grown in leadership responsibilities as an administrator in the special-tax division and the returns processing center, respectively.
In 1996, Jim’s career with the Department hit a turning point when he was named administrator of the Department’s Motor Carrier Services Division. Leading more than 107 employees, Jim merged operations of other Department divisions and created Indiana’s one-stop-shop motor carrier service. During his tenure in this role, Jim increased vehicle fleet registrations by 150 percent and earned the division the claim of being one of the “best one-stop-shop motor-carrier divisions” in the United States.
Along with his day-to-day responsibilities over the past decade, Jim also has chaired and served on the board of trustees for the International Registration Plan (IRP) and the International Fuel Tax Association. He also has chaired and served on numerous committees, such as the IRP Rewrite Committee affecting all motor carriers nationwide, the IRP Motor Carrier Managers Committee, the Federation of Tax Administrators (FTA) Motor Fuel Tax Section, the FTA Motor Fuel Tax Uniformity Committee and the FTA Motor Fuel Tax Evasion Subcommittee.
In addition, Jim has served at the pleasure of two governors on the Indiana Motor Carrier Advisory Group. His work has included restructuring the collection of fuel taxes at the retail and wholesale levels in Indiana and leading the development of the 10 Point Plan for fuel tax evasion that has been used throughout the nation. He is also has served as chairs for both the FTA and the IFTA.
With the incoming of a newly elected governor in 2005, Jim was named deputy commissioner of the Department, where his first task was to lead the business planning and implementation of the first and only Indiana Tax Amnesty program – which became one of the most successful tax amnesty efforts in the United States. The program collected more than $255 million in unpaid taxes to the State of Indiana over a two-month period. Governor Mitch Daniels described the results as “spectacular” and gave the Department of Revenue the first “A+” of his administration. Due to Jim’s excellent leadership, a significant contribution was made to reducing the state’s budget deficit – and enabled the governor to repay debt to schools across the state sooner than expected.