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Massachusetts' Big Brother Tech to Watch Taxpayers
rocketjam writes "The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts state Revenue Department has launched a new technology offensive which strives to piece together all the stray bits of financial information about individual taxpayers that is contained in various public databases in order to catch tax cheats. The databases have been around for years, but technology has only recently enabled the state to assemble and review the information in a time-efficient manner. The so-called 'Discovery' initiative is already bringing in an additional $1 million a week. While denying the state is playing 'Big Brother', the Revenue Department Commissioner, Alan LeBovidge predicted the state may eventually be able to track so much financial information on individuals that the state could complete the citizens' returns for them."
It says "The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts state Revenue Department has launched a new technology offensive"...
It should say "The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts state Revenue Department has launched a new offensive technology"
Dealing with states on taxes, specifically non-income tax related items is somewhat of a joke.
A friend who has a large retail operation on Florida once received a visit from the state. State said, you owe $91K in uncollected sales taxes according to our records. The state was really a single rep who most likely would receive incentives based upon the amount he collected.
Needless to say my friend hired an outside accountant to review everything and look at the claims. With some interesting results.
State agent returns to collect the money. My friend presents him with documentation and says, "we reviewed everything, and looks like we don't owe you $91K, in fact we overpaid $15K, so we need a refund."
Agent looked everything over, and said, he'd drop the claim and they'd call it even.