Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:29:00
Houston Seeks Payment Of $9.8 Million In Taxes
Local property owner Karen Houston stumbled over a mountain of delinquent taxes last week on her quest to catch a copper thief. This week, she opened a can of worms and found $9.8 million inside.
Houston’s attempt to find who stole copper from one of her properties was reported last week by The Quinlan-Tawakoni News. She was told by neighbors they saw who stole the copper.
“I looked up the property on the tax rolls where the thief was residing to try to find out more information on him,” Houston said. “When I looked up the property on the tax rolls, it showed that the taxes had not been paid in over 10 years. This made me mad that he had not paid his taxes and was stealing from the neighborhood and living for free. This led me to look into the streets surrounding my property and found well over $80,000 in unpaid taxes, some as far back as 20 years.”
Houston said she was told by the tax office that there were certain circumstances where this might be, the owners might not be able to be located, there might be a special deferral set up on the property if an individual was over 65, bankruptcy etc.
“I understand that,” she said. “I was led to believe that it was probably just the area that I was looking in because it was an older lake community. So out of curiosity, I selected three other areas to search to see if they had delinquent taxes 20 or so years back. And they all did. Some even 30 years back. I was shocked. I was not concerned with two to three years back as I understand with the economy that people might need more time to pay. These were all areas that also have had numerous crimes within the last year or so, so the correlation of theft to taxes being paid was certainly there. The amount that I came up with was $442,000 in taxes owed, and I had not even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg.”
Houston took her case to Hunt County Judge John Horn. Horn set up a meeting on Monday with Jeff Brown, attorney with Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, delinquent tax attorneys for taxing entities in Hunt County.
She invited fellow local property owner Tona Clough to the meeting.
“We learned a couple of things in this meeting that are very interesting,” Houston said. “First, Hunt County currently has a 97 percent retention rate for collecting taxes with only three percent uncollected.
“Second, if on June 1 of this year, an individual has not paid their taxes, they are put on a target list. It is our understanding that the target list is worked by a) how easy it is to actually find property owners; and b) the amount of taxes owed.”
She said “targeting” allows the firm a better retention ratio on collecting taxes owed.
“For instance, if a property owner can’t be located, it could take month even years to find the owners through last known address searches, property searches, etc.,” Houston said. “The price tag for this search is significant and in some cases the amount owed on property taxes may not justify the actual cost of the search. So if a property owner owes let’s say $500 on taxes, they are not going to be a priority on the ‘target list,’ because the cost does not justify the means. Understandable, but what is not understandable are the properties that owe thousands of dollars for years.”
She said everyone at the meeting agreed there might be portions of the system that were broke.
Houston said, “We also explained that we aren’t interested in hearing what can’t be done to fix the system and were only interested in hearing what could be done. And while the wheels may turn slowly to make some of these taxpayers accountable for the amount they owe, the wheels have been greased, and we walked away with a feeling that maybe we are going to start seeing some results in collecting delinquent taxes.”
She said it might take a concerted effort by the entire community to make the collection happen.
“It is a small community. People know where others are, if they or alive or not and how about people who may own property and not even know about it,” the property owner said. “How cool would that be to find out that you are the owner of a lake lot that your grandparents owned and willed to you?
“Bottom line is — collecting delinquent taxes will be significant for not only Quinlan, but all of Hunt County. It will bring revenue back to an already stretched budget which in turn will help out not only with adding more feet to the street in the sheriff’s department, but it will also help with road maintenance, staffing issues in the county and at our school districts.”
She said when she first started looking into delinquent taxes, it was to better understand who the people were that were seen stealing copper from one of her homes.
Houston said, “It has been said that I have opened up the proverbial can of worms, but here is information that is available to each taxpayer through open records and a written request. Delinquent taxes for all of Hunt County since the beginning of time is $9.8 million. Some of the taxes owed to the county have been owed for a very long time. And of the $9.8 million, the Quinlan area accounts for almost half of the amount with approximately $4.5 million owed. Again, this is not current year figures but these figures go way back in time. So huge can of worms or not, I think we can all agree that this is something that definitely needs to be fixed and together I think we can make that happen.”
Houston’s attempt to find who stole copper from one of her properties was reported last week by The Quinlan-Tawakoni News. She was told by neighbors they saw who stole the copper.
“I looked up the property on the tax rolls where the thief was residing to try to find out more information on him,” Houston said. “When I looked up the property on the tax rolls, it showed that the taxes had not been paid in over 10 years. This made me mad that he had not paid his taxes and was stealing from the neighborhood and living for free. This led me to look into the streets surrounding my property and found well over $80,000 in unpaid taxes, some as far back as 20 years.”
Houston said she was told by the tax office that there were certain circumstances where this might be, the owners might not be able to be located, there might be a special deferral set up on the property if an individual was over 65, bankruptcy etc.
“I understand that,” she said. “I was led to believe that it was probably just the area that I was looking in because it was an older lake community. So out of curiosity, I selected three other areas to search to see if they had delinquent taxes 20 or so years back. And they all did. Some even 30 years back. I was shocked. I was not concerned with two to three years back as I understand with the economy that people might need more time to pay. These were all areas that also have had numerous crimes within the last year or so, so the correlation of theft to taxes being paid was certainly there. The amount that I came up with was $442,000 in taxes owed, and I had not even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg.”
Houston took her case to Hunt County Judge John Horn. Horn set up a meeting on Monday with Jeff Brown, attorney with Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, delinquent tax attorneys for taxing entities in Hunt County.
She invited fellow local property owner Tona Clough to the meeting.
“We learned a couple of things in this meeting that are very interesting,” Houston said. “First, Hunt County currently has a 97 percent retention rate for collecting taxes with only three percent uncollected.
“Second, if on June 1 of this year, an individual has not paid their taxes, they are put on a target list. It is our understanding that the target list is worked by a) how easy it is to actually find property owners; and b) the amount of taxes owed.”
She said “targeting” allows the firm a better retention ratio on collecting taxes owed.
“For instance, if a property owner can’t be located, it could take month even years to find the owners through last known address searches, property searches, etc.,” Houston said. “The price tag for this search is significant and in some cases the amount owed on property taxes may not justify the actual cost of the search. So if a property owner owes let’s say $500 on taxes, they are not going to be a priority on the ‘target list,’ because the cost does not justify the means. Understandable, but what is not understandable are the properties that owe thousands of dollars for years.”
She said everyone at the meeting agreed there might be portions of the system that were broke.
Houston said, “We also explained that we aren’t interested in hearing what can’t be done to fix the system and were only interested in hearing what could be done. And while the wheels may turn slowly to make some of these taxpayers accountable for the amount they owe, the wheels have been greased, and we walked away with a feeling that maybe we are going to start seeing some results in collecting delinquent taxes.”
She said it might take a concerted effort by the entire community to make the collection happen.
“It is a small community. People know where others are, if they or alive or not and how about people who may own property and not even know about it,” the property owner said. “How cool would that be to find out that you are the owner of a lake lot that your grandparents owned and willed to you?
“Bottom line is — collecting delinquent taxes will be significant for not only Quinlan, but all of Hunt County. It will bring revenue back to an already stretched budget which in turn will help out not only with adding more feet to the street in the sheriff’s department, but it will also help with road maintenance, staffing issues in the county and at our school districts.”
She said when she first started looking into delinquent taxes, it was to better understand who the people were that were seen stealing copper from one of her homes.
Houston said, “It has been said that I have opened up the proverbial can of worms, but here is information that is available to each taxpayer through open records and a written request. Delinquent taxes for all of Hunt County since the beginning of time is $9.8 million. Some of the taxes owed to the county have been owed for a very long time. And of the $9.8 million, the Quinlan area accounts for almost half of the amount with approximately $4.5 million owed. Again, this is not current year figures but these figures go way back in time. So huge can of worms or not, I think we can all agree that this is something that definitely needs to be fixed and together I think we can make that happen.”