Company Allows Tax Collectors To Secretly Look For Home Improvements

[Sentry18]

https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/

Company Allows Tax Collectors To Secretly Look For Home Improvements And Airbnb's


Trust a corporation to turn property tax collectors into property owner surveillance operatives.

Deckard Technologies (DT) promotes Smart City surveillance by creating a program that allows tax collectors to surveil resident's properties anytime they want.

If you hate corporate doublespeak like I do, then you will love DT's explanation of how their product works.

"Applying advanced data analytics, machine-learning and the talents of our data scientists, we identify, monitor and analyze real estate data and property activity for cities demanding answers with accuracy and precision."

Let's start with their "advanced analytics that identifies, monitors and analyzes real estate data and property activity." In a nutshell they use Google Earth or other satellite imagery of peoples homes and compare them to their building plans.

After a tax collector has looked at someone's property they can fine the owner for any number of reasons, which in turn adds to that city's bottom line. Turning government tax collectors into a for-profit business venture is infuriating.

Cities and towns use DT to identify Airbnb's

DT claims cities will profit from surveilling citizen's properties,

"Property issues can include unreported permits, illegal construction work, periodic rental bookings, varied nightly rates, different occupants, home-sharing options, seasonal trends, and an uneven patchwork of paperwork of rental permits and tax bills."

"Periodic rental bookings, varied nightly rates, different occupants, home-sharing options, seasonal trends" is more corporate doublespeak for Airbnb's or vacation rentals.

If DT sees people coming and going from an owners (suspect's) property on a regular basis, guess what happens? Do you think the tax collector will notify law enforcement, so they can fine or ticket the owner? Of course they will, and that is the real danger of using DT.

Time after time we see terrible examples of government officials using law enforcement to fine and ticket citizens excessively, so they can pay for police salaries or pad city budgets.

A new report from the Institute for Justice warns,

"When cities use their enforcement powers more to raise revenue than to protect the public, they risk violating people’s rights."

And that is exactly what DT's product does,

"We model and produce highly refined real estate datasets into visual reports and detailed individual property profiles for our customers."

Allowing government employees to get "detailed individual property profiles" of an owners property, turns tax collectors into pseudo-probation officers who use numerous investigative techniques, looking for illicit behavior.

One of the most disconcerting things about DT, is that it gives government employees unwarranted access to people's properties, which can and will be abused.

DT's motto of, "Transforming Real Estate Data Into Actionable Insights" should really say, "Surveilling Everyone's Homes Without A Warrant Provides Revenues."

Using satellites to spy on people's property so cities and towns can profit from it, is a terrible idea.

It is so hard for me to put into words how I feel about tax collectors joining the ranks of Big Brother. I mean where does it end?

 

[Amish Heart]

Our govt spends more money than they take in from taxes. So not surprised they need to resort to this

 

[Sentry18]

Just one more way to fleece the American tax payer so they can continue to piss away our hard earned money.

I have not allowed a home inspection so I bought the place. Every year they knock, every year they tell me the law says I have to let them in, every year they tell me they can call the Sheriff's Office if need be, every year I tell them to get a warrant and a deputy and come back. So far they have not stepped foot in my house since 2005. But every year they raise my tax burden anyway from "exterior visual estimates".

 

[VThillman]

Just one more way to fleece the American tax payer so they can continue to piss away our hard earned money.

I have not allowed a home inspection so I bought the place. Every year they knock, every year they tell me the law says I have to let them in, every year they tell me they can call the Sheriff's Office if need be, every year I tell them to get a warrant and a deputy and come back. So far they have not stepped foot in my house since 2005. But every year they raise my tax burden anyway from "exterior visual estimates".

Every year they come? Jeez. The lister came to my place once in 17 years, when we tore down the old garage and had a new one put up. The new garage was a really big improvement over the old one

 

[Terri9630]

We've never had anyone come to check our house.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Doesn't happen here in Australia and they wouldn't ever get into our home anyway even if they asked . Do know human serviced monitor suspicious people they think are rorting the disability or unemployment benefits. They would be flat our putting surveillance on us as we would see them for miles around here.

 

[Sentry18]

We have far lower taxes than most states, so they want every single penny they can pull out of property tax.

 

[Weedygarden]

We've never had anyone come to check our house.

Me either. I suppose they would want to come during day hours, work hours 8 - 5. I was never home during those hours for years. Now, I am here and there, but I would never let someone like that in. Heck, I don't answer the door unless I know someone is coming.

 

[Amish Heart]

We had them come last year. Told them we didn't change a thing. Our tax went up. We hired a company that got it back down. They get a percentage of what they saved you. But I saw them walking in my neighbors backyard looking around when she wasn't home.

 

[Weedygarden]

I know a community where this happened. People just had no idea what was going on. There was someone at the door telling them they are there to do an inspection. It is a small, fairly poor community. In the process, they were not looking for home improvements. They were looking at potential code violations. When it came to code violations, all the homes that had them that were rentals were condemned. I believe in just a couple blocks area, a dozen or so homes were condemned. One family had been living in the same home for decades but the wiring was really a mess.

I have heard that places where swimming pools are common are flown over with drones to figure out who has one but is not paying taxes on the pool.

 

[phideaux]

Where I live, they never ask to see inside.
They don't seem to care that you put new flooring , new paint, countertop, .
But they have a county plane , and it flies low and takes pics of the outside ,every year , for new shed , new garage, new deck, new pond, new driveway, land cleared, etc, etc.

Oh yeah there's where the bucks are.

Jim

 

[havasu]

Our city uses GIS mapping and will overlay new pics over old pics, and any variations will cause our city workers to pay a visit, and an estimated increase in property taxes. It is then up to you to appeal this decision to prove their estimates are off.