Tax officials throughout the Washington region are trying new and often extraordinary measures to collect tens of millions of dollars in delinquent payments, as huge projected budget deficits threaten to slash public services.
Together, Washington-area localities are owed more than $40 million in overdue real estate taxes from fiscal 2010 alone. Additional millions in unrecovered fines, fees and personal property tax revenues compound those shortfalls.
They say they have been able to maintain historically high collection rates, but only by resorting to unusually aggressive collection methods.
"We give people appropriate notice, but if they ignore us, we'll just drive out to their house and remove their car from their driveway. That's an attention getter," said Arlington County Treasurer Frank O'Leary.
O'Leary said he has used such tactics in the past, but lately has encountered a startling new phenomenon.
"This year I sent my people out to collect some vehicles, and they came back and said the properties had been abandoned," O'Leary said. "That had never occurred in Arlington in all the years I'd been treasurer, and it was really sobering to hear that."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: Here..
Together, Washington-area localities are owed more than $40 million in overdue real estate taxes from fiscal 2010 alone. Additional millions in unrecovered fines, fees and personal property tax revenues compound those shortfalls.
They say they have been able to maintain historically high collection rates, but only by resorting to unusually aggressive collection methods.
"We give people appropriate notice, but if they ignore us, we'll just drive out to their house and remove their car from their driveway. That's an attention getter," said Arlington County Treasurer Frank O'Leary.
O'Leary said he has used such tactics in the past, but lately has encountered a startling new phenomenon.
"This year I sent my people out to collect some vehicles, and they came back and said the properties had been abandoned," O'Leary said. "That had never occurred in Arlington in all the years I'd been treasurer, and it was really sobering to hear that."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: Here..
crap............
ReplyDeletewe are doomed:
ReplyDelete"Arabica coffee rose to a 13-year high of $2.035 a pound in New York on concern that output may fall next year in Brazil and Colombia, the world’s two biggest growers of the variety. Robusta coffee reached a two-year high in London"
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPUPorjnDYUU&pos=2
Forget coffee! With all this bad news I need some weed.
ReplyDeleteWhat ?
ReplyDeleteYou can"t wake up and afford to smell the coffee now ?
Marx said the opposition and war for national independence of the german middle class to Napoleonic empire occupation was driven not just by the poor seeking bread ,but also by the shortage of sugar and coffee for the middle class as a result of the English empires war economic blockade of continental Europe.
These commodities were luxuries in those days.
Napolean responded by the developement of subsidies for the French sugar beet industry and developement of fake coffees.
The germans revolted all the same as the fake coffee was not very palatable to the elites tastes.
When bread became short in France ,the queeen divorced from everyday people lives and economic reality said "let them eat cake"
This arrogance and the failure of a bankrupt government to provide basic foodstuffs as expected by the people as normal helped to set off the French revolution.
The rise in coffee and other imported foodstuffs prices today is driven by speculators control of commodities and futures.
The futures dealer speculators , have american consumers by the balls in a blockade demanding superprofits from now everyday imported commodities like coffee.
The huge surge in Basic grain prices to record levels puts the Third World people. where their often monoculture exprt economies have been made dependent on subsidised First world agricultural products and grains, under the control of transnational companies and commodity futures speculators ,is a starvation blockade against the vast majority of the worlds poor people .By First world capital.
They have no food security.
Mostly The poor cannot afford good coffeee as it is , in the hands of the First World monopolists, still a luxury.
Thus Americans like the Germans of old may even protest a bit about the jacked price of coffee but will not rebel like the Germans .
They are still to fat and well fed.
While the Third World peoples, threatened with a shortage of grains,wheat, rice because of high monopoly prices etc may be driven by their empty bellies to revolt against the current system of world trade and finance .
With its the First world grain speculators of finance capital monopolies in control of the food grain markets may be driven to Peoples War revolt against the dollar Hegemony system
With all this bad news I need some weed.
ReplyDeleteYour weed is Going Up in Smoke
.
134 tons of it.
tax slavery
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"tax slavery"
October 21, 2010 7:35 PM
You sound like a terrorist to me .a simple analysis of just your two words, shows they are clearly designed to undermine condidence in the US Economy ,the american way of life the government and your Commander in Chief .
Shutup ,stop whining and just pay up like a good little responsible American.
So shut up and catch up with your mortgage and tax bills too , otherwise have we got some great fee deals for You!
Non payment of bills including taxes is a direct sabotage of the american economy.
Economic terrorism!
A crime covered by the Patriot acts at this time of a declared 'war against terrorism".