PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s tax agency plans to track down more than 10,000 individuals and businesses within the next two years to collect at least $10 million in delinquent taxes.

Using sophisticated new technology, the Rhode Island Division of Taxation plans to go after people and businesses — in Rhode Island and elsewhere — who either have not filed state tax returns as required or who have filed returns but failed to pay all the tax they owe.

The plan will be formally unveiled today. It is part of a campaign to “level the playing field” for taxpayers, said Gary S. Sasse, director of the state Department of Revenue.

Most individuals and businesses are honest, and pay their fair share of tax, state Tax Administrator David M. Sullivan said.

This campaign is geared toward those who fail to pay what they owe, Sasse said. “This is not about tax policy. This is about effectively administering the tax code . . . so people pay what’s owed.”

Among the targets:

•Consultants, independent contractors and others who are paid by Rhode Island organizations for work done in Rhode Island, but who have failed to report that income on a Rhode Island return.

The organizations typically report such payments to the Internal Revenue Service on Form 1099-MISC. The state agency is in the process of analyzing these forms to see which consultants or independent contractors filed a Rhode Island income-tax return as required — and which did not, Sullivan said.

•Rhode Islanders who buy furniture from North Carolina or other locations, but who fail to pay the required Rhode Island sales tax — technically known as a “use tax” — on the purchase. This practice puts Rhode Island retailers at a disadvantage, because they must collect a sales tax on in-state purchases, Sasse said.

State officials are auditing out-of-state retailers and shipping companies to find out which Rhode Islanders owe the tax, Sasse said.

•Businesses that are registered with the state but do not pay business-related tax.

Records from the Rhode Island secretary of state’s office show that more than 70,000 firms are registered to do business in Rhode Island, but the tax agency receives between 46,000 and 50,000 business tax returns each year, Sullivan said. “Our responsibility is to reconcile the difference. . . . It’s just prudent,” Sasse said.

State tax officials have gone after tax delinquents before, but their efforts have been hobbled by an antiquated computer system.

Late last year, however, the state Division of Taxation entered into a contract with a Massachusetts company — Revenue Solutions Inc. — to set up a special computer system, called a data warehouse.

The machine is about the size of a business-type filing cabinet. State officials are in the process of feeding information into it from the IRS, the secretary of state’s office and other organizations, including state tax agencies in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, Sasse and Sullivan said in an interview at the Department of Revenue yesterday.

The agency is also using a special computer software program — called a “data-mining tool” — to quickly sort through the data.

Such equipment gives tax officials the ability to use multiple sources of data at one time, and to search through all the data more effectively and efficiently, said Verenda Smith, interim executive director for the Federation of Tax Administrators, an association of tax agencies representing the 50 states, New York City, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

“This is where we’re going in tax administration,” she said. “The machine will be able to sort out the perfectly fine accounts from the questionable accounts more finely than [tax agencies] could before.”

More than half the states now have some sort of data warehouse, “and the other states are trying to get one,” she said.

Rhode Island is a small state with a small state tax agency, she said. “People need to be able to cover a lot of ground, and special tools like these can just make all the difference.”

With money authorized by the General Assembly, the Rhode Island Division of Taxation invested about $2.5 million in the new technology, “and certainly the taxpayers of the state have the right to expect a return on that investment,” Sasse said.

The state’s estimate of at least $10 million in revenue from the project is based on results the agency has already had and on results from similar projects in other states.

During the last six weeks, in what amounts to a pilot program, the state tax agency has issued notices to about 2,400 people in Rhode Island and else-where who owe a total of up to $2 million for the 2004 tax year, Sullivan said. The notices are based on data supplied by the IRS and analyzed through Rhode Island’s data warehouse, he said.

That program will soon be broadened to include people who failed to file for the 2005 and 2006 tax years, Sullivan said.

Governor Carcieri is scheduled to announce today the official launch of the campaign, which is called “Compliance 2010 — Revenue for Rhode Island’s Future.”

“The ability to coordinate state and federal tax information will help the state recoup an estimated $10 million in revenue and identify upwards of 10,000 noncompliant taxpayers,” Carcieri said in a statement to be issued today.

Mark Higgins, dean of the University of Rhode Island’s College of Business Administration, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the state were able to collect that much.

“The more data you have, the better you can figure it out” and track down scofflaws, Higgins said yesterday.

ndowning@projo.com