Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina 208
Tailhook (98486) writes "The Argentine government has used drones to reveal 200 homes and 100 pools in an upper class area about ten miles south of Buenos Aires that had not been detailed on tax returns. Tax officials said the drones took pictures of luxury houses standing on lots registered as empty. The evasions found by the drones amounted to missing tax payments of more than $2 million and owners of the properties have been warned they now face large fines."
Someone's going to complain (Score:3)
But A. this isn't the US with a 4th amendment, and B. There's nothing invasive about doing standard surveying work automatically.
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Funny)
In the US, this would be "Google Maps Reveals Widespread Tax Evasion"
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Google Street View, Google Satellite View are all now being used by lazy local governments.
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Insightful)
Wordprocessors are used by lazy typists and compilers are used by lazy programmers.
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/Oblg. *Ogg* the caveman shakes first* All those lazy bastards using the wheel ...
* No, NOT the /. troll Ogg ...
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Whoosh.
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nobody bothered to tell you? There's an app for that, you know.
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Interesting)
Google Street View, Google Satellite View are all now being used by lazy local governments.
A rare example of governments using a cheap, effective method to do their jobs rather than finding an expensive and inefficient way to do it.
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Its stale. I've got news for you Google Street View and Satellite images can be years old. If I were relying on it for up to date information then I'd be mistaken. My house on street view was taken in 2010. A lot has changed since then.
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Its stale. I've got news for you Google Street View and Satellite images can be years old. If I were relying on it for up to date information then I'd be mistaken. My house on street view was taken in 2010. A lot has changed since then.
How much is that more-up-to-date information worth to you?
Depending on what the government is using it for, using street view or maps images may or may not be effective. A blanket statement characterizing it as "lazy" doesn't make sense until you have determined whether or not the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
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In the case of Argentina it sounds like they're flat out lazy. How can you not see a house built on a lot that was supposedly vacant? You have to plat the lot, take out permits presumably and then have inspections. Maybe in Argentina they don't have building codes? I doubt that but somebody isn't doing their job. In the US my google satellite view of my house shows a car I sold 7 years ago. Time to buy camo tenting and drape it over every square inch of my exposed yard area, or at least where I'd par
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In the case of Argentina it sounds like they're flat out lazy. How can you not see a house built on a lot that was supposedly vacant? You have to plat the lot, take out permits presumably and then have inspections. Maybe in Argentina they don't have building codes? I doubt that but somebody isn't doing their job.
In the case of Argentina, they're not using Google Maps (etc.) They're going out and taking pictures of the property, getting timely evidence. That's what the whole article is about -- them using drones to do their job.
Lazy is when now during re-appraisals (which we go through annually here) means that they have to have an up to date photo of the property to assess "condition" We caught them last year using a 6 year old Google Street View image. That's lazy and I already pay well enough for these morons to just drive around and get up to date information, it's in the tax law for my state and we caught them not doing their job.
If they legally need a photo less than a year old, and they're instead grabbing photos off of Google, then yes, they're using Google inappropriately, and it's fair to call it lazy.
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Just plain nuts. The road and footpath out the front that provides access to your property. The sewerage system that removes the shite you produce. The stormwater system that keeps your property from being flooded. Access for communications systems. Emergency services including police and fire brigade. Schools, apparently you need some education. Local taxes versus Federal 'income' taxes. Some sort of planning control to prevent neighbouring property being turned into a dump. I gather you want everyone els
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:4, Interesting)
An assessor using street view/aerial (most of the imagery from such services is actually taken from aircraft) is probably pretty darn close 99% of the time.
Our assessors don't even get that fancy. They just use a standard calculator to calculate the maximum allowable increase in property value allowable by law and then that is what your house is worth this year.
If you wish to contest it, by all means pay $500 for an independent appraisal which might be thrown out by the judge or might be accepted and might even save you something less than the $500 you spent on the appraisal.
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I don't know about you but any drones flying overhead become skeet practice.
Is prison really that attractive to you? http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32 [cornell.edu]
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What do you mean? I didn't pay any sales tax when I bought my house, AFAIK. (If I did, I need to redo my income taxes and deduct that! It wasn't a new house, I've always wondered if they had to pay sales tax.)
I think a lot of taxes should go down, but a property tax seems like one of the more REASONABLE taxes. Owning property means you live there (or at least have an interest there, e.g
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Is it really? You can probably buy satellite images pretty cheap today. Or you could just rent a plane and a pilot. If the area is large enough it would probably both faster and cheaper than using an RC quadcopter.
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Since the 1990's cities have had their own street-view like platforms. Both the data-collection and the UI were not nearly as refined as street-view is today. Cities would pay to have vans photograph the streets every couple of years. The vans had only 1 or 2 cameras, and the Windows software was crude and hard to use, but still saved a lot of time compared to dispatching an inspector to check for things like newly installed decks, carports, and sheds.
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, I kinda want a 20x30 rollup "roof" or "pool" that I can put out on poles or roll out on the ground.
Then put them away after google shows I've added a room or pool.
he he.
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camo netting. Where's the nearest Army Surplus again?
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK, even before Google got in there, the government was using spy satellites to check on things like farm subsidies: when a farm submits a claim saying there's a 100 acre patch empty (to claim "setaside" payments) or has a highly subsidised crop growing, it's quick and easy to check a satellite photo and know if it's really only 90 acres - or if only the strip nearest the road is as claimed, with a big patch of some more profitable crop hidden inside. Compared to the cost of sending someone there by car to inspect the whole field on foot, using satellites (which of course they had in orbit anyway, for more predictable purposes) apparently it saved a fortune.
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No, I think in the US this *WILL BE*
"FBI, IRS, ATF, State DMV's, DHS, DEA, and ICE use drones to reveal criminal activities of 25% of the population, resulting in the remaining 75% being under even closer scrutiny."
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It falls into rules governing being in plain sight. In the United States, cities and counties use Google Maps and other aerial surveillance to look for nonpermitted structures and other construction that hasn't properly been paid for. If I were to put u
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a) Their constitution is based on ours. b) It's not really standard surveying work when it is targeting a specific area to collect money from tax evaders with drones and it is most certainly invasive if they are comparing it against people's tax documents.
You do know that state and county governments in the US have been using aerial photography to help validate tax records for decades now, right? Where do you think Google got all those aerial shots in the early days of Google Earth? The only news here is "...with a drone!!"
Why not google (Score:4, Interesting)
What, Argentina can't just click on google maps to find pools, they need drones?
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the images from google maps are at least 2 years old. That's at least 2 fiscal years worth of fraud and fines.
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While Google maps would catch some of the tax-evaders, drones catch the ones who built homes after the latest Google Maps data update for the region.
There are companies that sell more up-to-date satellite photos. Buying some already existing commercial photos would almost certainly be cheaper than buying and maintaining a drone, training the operators, etc.
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According to this [landinfo.com] it would cost from $13-$16 per square mile for photos. An operator with a $5000 drone can out do that quite quickly. Then there is the issue of cloud cover.
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How do you figure? You could survey 312 square miles for the cost of the drone and that does not take in account the cost of the operator's time.
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312 square miles is only 17 miles square. That is not much area and can be observed from a drone in less than a day. When you are surveying large areas year after year the costs add up quite quickly. The drone would pay for itself in the first year and every year after that it is just the operator time which would be much less than $13/square mile.
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Pools and ponds are regulary removed from public accessable air survilance photos, amoung other things like potential ancient ruins (covert by dirt).
You find no single german air survilance photo where a potential teutonic, roman or celtic site is hidden. That is all removed by automatic algorithms so 'grave robbers' or 'tomb raiders' can not dig around.
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Ponds got removed because people might have expensive fish in it, Kois e.g. ... thiefes steal your fish or break in your house (house with a pool used as indicator for more potential 'value')
Pools similar, indicating an 'expensive' house.
Facebook post: I'm in/on Hawaii
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Don't I recall you having a grammarian among your personalities?
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Not that I'm aware off. Do I make indeed so many grammar errors?
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In fact I do so, but my teachers usually disagreed :)
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But but but Drones! Government Drones!!!1
Nailing rich people though........ I bet this particular case of government drones gathering intelligence on citizens gets a pass. Because on Slashdot, the only thing worse than rich people are their corporations. This site came to mind pretty fast when I spotted this story.
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Yeah, why aren't they taking on all the poor people buying vacant lots and building houses with pools on them?
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Informative)
FYI, this came up many years ago in the US. Defendants challenged the admissibility of evidence from aerial observations. The courts pretty much held that since the police are allowed to fly helicopters and airplanes over your house, anything that they observe while doing so is admissible under the 4th Amendment.
The basic rule for criminal evidence is that the cops can make observations from anyplace they're allowed to be. If they're standing on a sidewalk and see a marijuana plant in your front window, that's probable cause. Same if they walk up to your front door. They can look around any non-fenced areas on your property too. They can't stand in the bushes and peek through your windows, unless they have some other business being there (hint: do not have a burglar alarm if you're growing weed anywhere someone can see it through a window).
So if the cops can see your mj plants (or pool) from the air or some unfenced part of your yard, you're toast.
The rules for adminsitrative searches (e.g. code enforcement or tax enforcement) are much more lenient than criminal searches. Administrative searches often don't require a warrant, or if they do the warrants are much easier to obtain.
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The IR thing puts a somewhat different spin on matters, because it's a step towards seeing through walls. A case like this came in front of SCOTUS a few years ago and even Scalia balked at giving IR detection his blessing.
Last time I looked into this the courts were still working out where sensory enhancement/extension crosses over the line. If someone were being loaded into an ambulance and you overheard the conversation, no foul. But if you couldn't hear the conversation and used a parabolic mic, that
Expectation of privacy (Score:2)
Even in the US, this is justified and I have no problem with it. There is no expectation of privacy when you build a house. I'm on the tax rolls. I expect my neighbors to be on the tax rolls too. That's how it works. Civil disobedience? No. This isn't Rosa Parks sitting in the front of a bus. This is a bunch of rich people cheating. Nothing to see here, move along.
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Yes, you can in the US. It might be illegal, but so is tax evasion. Pick a remote locality without much enforcement. Build there using under the table labor.
Then in a few years, die in an electrical fire thanks to illegally poor wiring.
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The general answer to all your questions is no. You can't build a house on any plot of land you feel like. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will correct me, but the basic route to building a house on a piece of land, as opposed to buying an already existing house, is:
1) Buy the land. This generally involves you and a broker but it could also be done through private parties (i.e. from you to me). In either case there is a record of who owns what, the amount they paid and, most importantly, a record wit
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Actually, in many areas you don't need building permits or permission to do anything you'd like. It has to pass safety inspection in order for you to sell it, but you can build and live in your own house. Most areas want their cut in taxes and permit fees if you build, however.
Re:Someone's going to complain (Score:5, Funny)
"and then some"?
What.... did they take stuff from other people too?
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I actually wasn't trying to be pedantic.... I genuinely did not see the point that was being made. If they imposed a debt above and beyond everything he owned, then yeah... I can see how that is "and then some", but when I read the sentence, I was quite thoroughly baffled as to how that could have been without them taking things from other people (presumably relatives or something).
Now if I *were* to be pedantic, I might have pointed out that since the uncle was in a position to be giving that advice in
I had clients that did this in the 90s. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only they were using aerial, then later satellite photos. We scanned the aerials, orthorectified them then registered them in a coordinate system for the city's GIS. They'd overlay a lot map and go plot by plot looking for pools, decks, and additions that weren't in the property tax database. These were mostly wealthy towns in Connecticut where this stuff added up to real money.
Now of course you can do that with Google Maps, if you don't mind waiting 1-3 years to catch people.
Just because you do *exactly the same thing* with a slightly different tool doesn't make it new. Back from those days one of the senior managers used to come into my office and say, "I just read about this patent where --" and I'd cut him off right there.
"This isn't going to be another one of those things where they take something people have been doing for ages with LORAN and substitute GPS, is it?" I ask.
"Well..."
"I don't want to hear about it. Whatever it is the patent is sure not to stand up to scrutiny, but I still don't want them holding treble damages over our head."
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Orthorectified 'em? Nearly killed 'em!
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Especially strange considering that a pool adds about $0 to the resale value of a house.
They are a pain in the ass and/or expensive to maintain.
Sacramento has a beautiful river that often features drunk, naked college girls. What price can you put on that?
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Especially strange considering that a pool adds about $0 to the resale value of a house.
That probably depends on the part of the country you're in, but you're probably right in most places.
There's another angle to consider, which is that in some places the property value for tax purposes is rarely updated. That means in those places many if not most properties are undervalued for tax purposes. And voters aren't keen on stepping up the pace of re-appraisals because a lot of them are paying taxes on valuations from ten years ago, sometimes longer. And if you get reappraised before your neighbor
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Depends upon where you are. When I was growing up in the hot central valley, a swimming pool absolutely added to the home's value (not the above ground type though).
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You get your home assessed for the purposes of determining the value of your property, including the structures you have on it. A pool increases the value, and hence, your property tax.
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What surprises me is: how can a country "of the free" have a property tax on a swiming pool?
At least that is what I get from your and other posts.
The only simple explanation I see is, the tax is based on the 'value' of the areal, which might be higher if there is a pool.
Yes, you've got it right. They tax the value of the property, which is supposedly higher if you put in the pool; at the very least that would trigger a revaluation in some jurisdictions. The same would happen if you added on a porch or a new wing. There is no "porch" or "new wing" tax, just a tax on the value of the property.
I don't know what it is you got from my other posts. I don't make the law, I'm just reporting what it is, which I've learned by taking a couple of night classes in IT related law tha
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Which would be exactly correct. Real estate taxes are levied on the appraised value of the real estate, which a pool would increase.
Note that this is even more clear-cut, because we're not just talking about a pool, but a piece of real estate documented to the taxman as a vacant lot with not just a pool, but an entire mansion, which, of course, raises the value of the property by qui
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Isn't the property tax most places based upon the value of the home? So adding a pool will increase the value of the home. Normally though there's a tax assessor that goes around and should be looking at every lot and assign a new assessed value, though in practice I think they just google if the prices in the neighborhood have gone up or down.
A lot of government in the US works by assuming most people are generally lawful, and they're not going to just start adding rooms onto the house without filing the
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Drones are cost effective? (Score:2)
Maybe someone on a motorcycle could more cost effectively go around checking on empty vs developed lots? Sure, they might not see the pool out back, but the house might be hard to hide.
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You can check a lot more houses faster with a drone. Like, look at an aeriel photograph vs. one taken from a car and see how many houses you can count.
Also like you said, with a drone you can see backyard pools.
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*banging head on wall with everybody calling these things 'drones'*
Not just any aeriel photography... manned vs not.
This is simply a modern and more cost effective way of doing what has been done for ages.
It used to be you'd pay someone (for their time & fuel) to fly a manned helicopter or airplane over a given area and have to deal with possibly remote takeoff/landing locations as well as noise over your target... now you simply pay a guy with a van to park on a public street, launch a UAV and fly it o
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We are talking Argentina here. If the building is a couple miles from the property line on a private, gated road the motorcyclist may not see it. A 'lot' could be very large.
Bah (Score:2, Insightful)
So what if drones are doing it vs satellite or photos from a plane with a human at the controls.
In Lee County, Florida(and I'm sure others) they take 20+ aerial photographs a year, from above, N, E,S, and West 'birds eye', AND hire people to look for violations, New Roof, Fence, pool, WHATEVER? from previous years? Is there a permit issued? If not, send in the tax collectors... They also go after people with lawns that are too long, etc.
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Being a south-american myself (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet most of these houses belongs to people somewhat related to government itself, and the thing will be forgotten as soon as possible.
Drones! Drones! Drones! (Score:5, Informative)
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Funny note, Argentina's AFIP (IRS) director, had a 82x (yes, 82 times) increment on his wealth since he started working for the government.
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" I think it's self explanatory. " ... because that's where the money is ...
Too bad drones can't reveal government corruption (Score:5, Informative)
That's a drone i would love to see flying.
In Argentina we have drones watching general population private property for tax declarations.
We got camera domes on most corners, but nobody is monitoring them, and certainly not even police cars to dispatch to those locations.
We got a vice president who evaded taxes, declare nonexistant addresses, but nobody cares.
We had a commerce secretary -a real character, funny guy- he intimidated people -mafia like-, got taped and nothing happened.
We got a gunpoint robber, got caught on GoPro by the victim, he's not in jail, he's on the TV, he's a rockstar now.
We got some official car (senator) drivers that got caught trafficking cocaine....rofl, nothing happened.
We even got a NGO for human rights with more than 5000 bouncing checks, but it's not so NGO since it's heavly sponsored by the government, and those bouncing checks - for some reason - never got into the credit rating system (magic!)
We got a spike on meth precursors for 2 or 3 years, (10x efedrin imports from 6 tons to 60 tons) and the permits for that trace back to phone lines to the presidential building! yay! way to go Argentina, nothing happened besides 3 witnesses got killed -executed- and...yay! nothing happened!
We got no radars guarding our borders, the only smuggling small planes we know about, are those that crash land from time to time.
So, there's nothing new in a drone/plane/satellite catching tax evasion. I want the corruption spotting drone. That would make "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters".
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It sounds like you guys have already done pretty good at spotting the corruption. Now you need anti-corruption missiles...I mean legal action.
Re:Too bad drones can't reveal government corrupti (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nice idea, but . . .
The hard disks containing the evidence from the drones would crash.
Along with all the hard disks of any computers containing email referencing evidence from the drones.
And all the backup tapes would be "recycled".
And the person in charge would drop her pants, moon the government, invoke the 5th Amendment, and invite the government to kiss her hairy ass.
Oh, and she gets early retirement and a juicy taxpayer funded pension, too.
so drones are useless because... (Score:2)
they don't solve all of your problems?
Because this is what your post is boiling down to as far as I can tell.
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There was a time, a long time ago, that irony and sarcasm were a day to day practice in Slashdot.
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And this is how dictators get power and military takeovers happen.
The current government is so bad that the people figure any change might be better.
I would say that you need some good people to run for office but if they did they might end up in jail or worse.
Don't worry I am sure that the current government will tell everyone that it is the fault of the British and start a new war soon.
Remember this is Argentina (aka Kleptocracy.gov) (Score:3)
Basically everyone who's not a government official in the country needs three things.
Food, water, air.
Everything else is a "luxury item" and the government's committed to taxing people until they can no longer afford anything but the basic three things.
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Basically everyone who's not a government official in the country needs one thing.
air.
Everything else is a "luxury item" and the government's committed to taxing people until they can no longer afford anything but the basic one thing.
FTFY
I stand ashamed, but corrected.
Third World Problems. (Score:2)
Round here, $2M is what politicians blow on nose candy of a Friday night.
The Neighbourhood (Score:2)
Since it wasn't mentioned in the article, the neighbourhood in question is Nuevo Quilmes.
Google's satellite imagery indeed shows some very low density housing. I guess we're talking the mega-rich who moved out of Recoleta.
Re:Just what we need. More compliance! (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll certainly make things a little easier on the non-tax cheats who have to pay more to cover these assholes.
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You haven't taken anything but you have deprived the powers that be of being able to tax you for something which you purchased with taxed funds. Property taxes to me are one of the evil problems we have. Considering the construction crews who built it payed income tax as well as the materials probably all had taxes on those including sales taxes. Governments these days aren't happy unless they squeeze every last penny out of you.
Re:Just what we need. More compliance! (Score:5, Informative)
The township has a certain set of fixed costs which it has to meet every year.
Taxes are set so as to raise that amount, apportioned as decided by the lawmakers and voters.
People who fail to pay on unreported improvements aren't adhering to the agreed-upon social contract, placing a larger requirement for payments/burden on those who are.
If you don't like the taxes in an area, move, or participate in your local government to get things changed.
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Stuff like street maintenance, right? Is a property's burden on the streets proportional to the property's value or the property's street frontage?
Cities and towns usually get this answer wrong, and that causes a lot of problems such as those we saw in the real estate crash.
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The value of education isn't proportional to the property's value. Law enforcement probably is.
Fire protection should be billed to the property owner's insurance in order to provide the proper incentive to use fireproof building materials, and to clear away brush in areas prone to wildfires.
In California, we make a distinction between taxes and fees [ca.gov]. For example, a fee is:
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Yet it's the inner cities, where poor people live, that heavily [downtownsandiego.org] subsidize [streetsblog.org] the suburbs, where middle- and upper-class people live.
It's interesting how people rationalize this kind of reverse welfare by calling anything else "regressive."
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Stuff like street maintenance, right? Is a property's burden on the streets proportional to the property's value or the property's street frontage?
So if you highrise apartment block with 500 families occupying a 'city block' vs a 10 homes occupying another city block. The 10 families in the 10 homes should each pay 50x the property taxes as the high rise tenants?
Because the highrise properties burden on the towns resources is less?! Sure maybe for snow clearing on that particular street. But water? garbage
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The assessment for street maintenance on the property taxes for the 10 homes should each be 50 times that of an apartment unit.
Yes, water infrastructure costs less per unit in an apartment building than a single-family home. But this should be on everyone's water bills, not their taxes.
Yes, it's easier to haul away trash from a single dumpster than from trash barrels serving the same
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The assessment for street maintenance on the property taxes for the 10 homes should each be 50 times that of an apartment unit.
Based on what? Most of the maintenance costs are for the bridges overpasses, main thoroughfares, and other shared items. Not the roads in front of my house.
Yes, it's easier to haul away trash from a single dumpster than from trash barrels serving the same number of homes.
Slightly easier sure, but the highrise produces 50x as much trash. So instead of 10 trashcans once a week they ne
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Let's say a single dumpster handles the trash of 25 apartment units. So you'll need 20 dumpsters for the 500-unit apartment block. For 500 single-family homes, you'll need 500 trash barrels. Which do you think is easier to service, 20 dumpsters or 500 barrels?
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For 500 single-family homes, you'll need 500 trash barrels. Which do you think is easier to service, 20 dumpsters or 500 barrels?
I don't dispute that the apartment may be easier to service. I'm just pointing out that its nowhere near 50x as difficult to serve the homes despite them having 50x time 'frontage'. Hauling 3 dumpters a day from one building or collecting garbage from 10 blocks... sure the individual cans is going to be more work... but not THAT much more. If you want to charge them more, fine...
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If a foot of street costs $10 per year to maintain, then how much does 500 feet of street cost per year to maintain? I'm saying it's $5,000, but you're saying it's less than that. Is this some kind of new math?
And remember, we're talking about making only "the assessment for street maintenance on the property taxes" proportional to street frontage, not the entire property tax bill.
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Bribes.
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The link you offered — whatever its credibility — shows government spending as a percentage of GDP.
This is related to, but not at all the same as the tax burden of individuals.
Now, here is, what happened January 1, 2014 in the US:
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Darn, sorry, hit "Post" instead of "Continue editing". If you aren't convinced yet, taxes are growing, here is another item: the share of Americans in the labor-force is lower [washingtonpost.com] in recent years than in Bush's era, the percentage collecting "disability" is record high [cnsnews.com], the official unemployment numbers remain stubbornly above Bush's, but the Federal revenue is the highest ever [ncpa.org].
This can only mean one thing — those of us, who are still working, are paying the ever higher taxes...