Monday, September 20, 2010

It's dismaying

The next victim is beginning to move into the kid's house.

I can hear the line of BS, "The previous tenant was....." The people are looking at the house and saying to themselves, 'a house we can afford.....' Nope, by the time they pay all the little victim penalties, they can't afford that place. Garden? They grow a garden and the produce might simply vanish, after all who's going to care of a tomato or 2 walks away. They'll realize their mistake within 4 weeks but it's too late. They're hooked, some fish fight more than others but few get off the line.

A friend was helping me move a vehicle yesterday. He was also victimized by a landlord, so we looked her up, and sure enough, she's taking the same property tax credit the Chinaman took that got or is getting him audited. She never gives receipts, only takes green cash, and has a house that is designed to have paying 'room mates'. Well, her house isn't zoned for that to be legal, I don't even have to make a trip into town to check on the specifics of it. As far as zoning is concerned she's running a rooming house, and she's only zoned for residential. In order for the tax credit she's taking to be legal, she has to be living in the house, and she has to be a state resident, and it has to be a single family residence. Nope, rooming house. How can revenue determine that on casual inspection? Simple, how many non-related peoples tax returns show that address? For most years, if not all years, they're going to come up with 4. That's enough to make that tax credit invalid, the tax credit is enough for an audit, and from there..... I'm pretty sure my friend will tell them the amount is $1150/month that she brings in in rent. Revenue will say ok, 84 months X $1150 is close to $100,000, and they'll want the back tax's as well as the trifling sum of around $1000 for the back tax credit that wasn't legit, plus penalties and all. Then zoning gets into the act and says, get those people out of there. Then the house goes up for sale.

That woman will wail and cry to anyone who will listen that she's this big time victim, and the government has singled her out, and..... BALONEY! One of the reasons the government is broke is because she and a lot of other people like her should be paying their way, and they aren't. What will happen? I'm not sure, but I suspect that things called tax sales sometimes begin as some capricious, petty little hustler landlord, taking their bad day out on someone who has been paying them (like my friend), when they wish they had a hundred or 2 more in their pocket.

I do know this, that woman has no other major source of funds. She claims she's disabled. She moves around fine when she's painting the basement apartment to rent it out to the next person, but she's otherwise disabled. Now she's got real trouble. She thought she has privacy in the United States, well she sort of does, but there is also this thing called zoning. She wouldn't want a dog kennel with barking dogs next door, nor would she want an 8 unit apartment building, nor would she want an 800 square foot tiny house because zoning protects her from that. Well, zoning protects her neighbors from her. They didn't complain? Doesn't matter. My friend that you kicked out complains to me, and he or I take the complaint downtown. Zoning takes a look (and they can take a look inside with notice), says yes it's true, issues some kind of cease and desist order, and you don't victimize any more people. Zoning is also capable of looking up how many non related people have vehicles registered to the same address, that would do the trick all by itself. How is it the old line goes...... What a tangled web you weave, when first you practice to decieve.

No comments: