Vicious Circle of Big Government Intrusion and Thievery

Governments spend more and more to grow their tax thievery, so they can spend more and more on more government waste! m/r

That Cessna Flying Over Your House May Be Sending Photos to the Tax Assessor - Bloomberg Business

by Suzanne Woolley

Would-be gawkers in New York’s wealthy Hamptons neighborhoods are easily foiled by tall, thick hedgerows and long, gated driveways. For a long time, so were tax assessors wanting to check properties with a quick drive-by. Then they found an easy way past all those defenses. They just went over their heads—or specifically, a pilot in a tricked-out Cessna did, with cameras in the plane’s belly and sides taking high-resolution photos of lawns speckled with pools, cabanas, and tennis courts.

The Southampton town assessor used such aerial photos of one of the most highly assessed gated properties in Sagaponack to show the town board how useful the flyover imagery, which cost around $110,000, could be. “We could see everything,” says Lisa Goree, the town assessor. “We could measure every roofline, every structure, the land between the structures. It was amazing.” The town already had the permits for construction done on the property, but the added detail from on high helped send the assessed value of the property from $218 million to $240 million, she says.1

Resource-strapped local governments across the U.S. like how the photos can lead to more accurate tax rolls, greater tax revenue, and a far faster, easier way to assess properties. For an extra fee, counties can use software to compare current photos with prior flyovers. That helps them find potential changes to properties—and a good recent aerial photo can also stop a property tax appeal in its tracks. So while government users of the photos welcome it as a revenue and productivity boon, the impact on homeowners is more mixed.

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