Mayor Ryan: Tax Cheaters Win Big in Tallahassee?Residents Lose ...

BY MIKE RYAN

At a time when local governments are facing tremendous financial challenges, there are those who cheat the system, refuse to pay their fair share, and make each of us shoulder a greater burden. ???The cheaters seem to keep winning.

Florida law gives Homestead Exemptions and Save Our Homes protections to permanent residents.

Those who claim homestead exemptions but rent the property or use it as a vacation home are cheating all of us.?? According to the BCPA website, ?a Homestead Exemption and the Save our Homes protections [for a single property] can easily be worth over $3,000 in taxes each year.?

If cheaters get caught, they must pay up to 10 years of back taxes plus penalties of 50% of the unpaid taxes plus 15% interest per year on the unpaid taxes.?? Money recovered is a direct financial benefit to cities, School Board, Broward County ? and you. Every dollar of real estate tax is divided roughly amongst a city (25%), the County (25%), the School Board (38%) and the remainder to other taxing authorities, according to the Broward County Property Appraiser, Lori Parrish,

Catching cheaters, though, requires tips, data, and, sometimes, laborious investigative work.?? Harvesting data from available sources and incentivizing the community is necessary if we are to catch cheaters efficiently.

Senate Bill 778 proposed to give rewards for tips and require ?residential condominium or cooperative? associations to provide a list of rental properties to the property appraiser?s office.

Seems reasonable.

The legislation proposed a reward of 20% of the total recovery, not to exceed $500.

Seems reasonable.

With a list of rentals, the property appraiser could then crosscheck the information against the database of claimed exemptions.? There was no penalty if the association failed to cooperate.? Instead, the legislation assumed we would all agree cheaters shouldn?t win.

Seems reasonable.

Guess what happened??? Cheaters won again.

SB 778 died in a Senate committee during last session of the Legislature.? This was not the first time the idea meant to help us locally died in Tallahassee. ??Whatever the reasons, the cheaters won big again.

Cities, Public Needs To Help

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Each year, the Broward County Property Appraiser?s Fraud Investigative Unit investigates thousands of cases.? They have 15 employees dedicated to recovering taxpayer dollars; last year they completed over 12,000 cases.? Since 2005, over $55 million has been ?back-taxed? and nearly $36 million collected.

Everyone agrees there is much more that must be done. ??The millions of dollars in fraud yet to be re-captured could go to services you and I are paying for ? schools, parks, libraries, police, fire and essential services.?? When the cheaters don?t pay, you and I pay more to cover their costs.

Cooperation between water utilities and the BCPA can help identify those properties being rented.?? Some cities, like Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Davie and Sunrise, have assigned detectives to help BCPA investigate fraud.? The City of Sunrise recently passed a Resolution requesting homeowner and condominium associations to voluntarily produce a list of rental properties.? For Sunrise, tips are already coming in.

You should care what every city is doing.? Even when another city helps to successfully uncover fraud, it helps you.?? Therefore, we need a permanent, sustained and cooperative effort throughout the County.

We need to make sure every municipality and every governmental unit are working together to help the BCPA catch homestead exemption cheaters each year.

We need someone to revive SB 778 or inspire similar legislation to encourage community cooperation.

In the meantime, you can help the Broward County Property Appraiser.? You can call the anonymous tip line (954-357-6900) or report anonymously on-line.

There is much debate over the right level of property taxes.? However, everyone can agree on this basic principle ? Homestead Exemption cheaters should never win.

(Michael J. Ryan was elected Mayor of Sunrise in August 2010. He holds a B.B.A., majoring in Finance, from The George Washington University, and a Juris Doctorate, summa cum laude, from The Case Western Reserve School of Law.)

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Source: http://www.browardbeat.com/mayor-ryan-tax-cheaters-win-big-in-tallahasseeresidents-lose/

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