WASHINGTON and CHARLOTTE,
N.C., July 22, 2019
/PRNewswire/ -- LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today announced
that two Florida counties—Brevard
County and Duval County—have joined four other Florida counties that have used the company's
Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution to collectively
uncover more than $16 million in new
tax revenue resulting from homestead exemptions. The solution,
which combines LexisNexis Risk Solutions public records databases
with identity analytics technology and investigative capabilities
from Tax Management Associations (TMA), helped the six counties
identify nearly 2,000 erroneous and fraudulent tax filings
pertaining to Florida's homestead
property tax exemption. These counties were then able to collect
taxes from those filings and discover new sources of revenue.
Over 300,000 people claimed the homestead exemption across
Brevard County and Duval County on their 2018 tax returns.
Out of those, Brevard County has
detected more than 400 fraudulent accounts, resulting in the
collection of $2.723 million in new
tax revenue as of May 2019.
Meanwhile, to date, Duval County
has detected more than 500 fraudulent accounts totaling
$2.358 million in new tax
revenue.
Florida law stipulates that
counties may go back and collect revenue from the previous ten
years once an instance of fraud is discovered. To date,
Brevard County and Duval County have been able to place more than
$34 million of new revenue back into
the jurisdictions' tax rolls. The money collected is being used to
fund public services, including education, utilities, roads and
more.
"Our task from Dana Blickley, the
Brevard County Property Appraiser, is to ensure any exemptions
applied for and granted are accurately and fairly assessed," said
Ed Pollock, director of Homestead
Investigations. "The Brevard County Property Appraiser places a
high priority on the prevention of Homestead fraud or the erroneous receipt of
exemptions. The Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution
provided an effective, efficient and productive method of
pinpointing and identify those instances; thereby exponentially
enhancing the recovery efforts for lost tax revenue to Brevard County and municipalities."
"Most of our residents are law-abiding citizens who claim only
the homestead exemptions they're entitled to, but there will always
be some who try to take more than their fair share," said
Jerry Holland, Duval County property appraiser.
"Working with LexisNexis Risk Solutions and TMA has helped us
expose fraudulent and non-compliant claims, returning revenue due
to the proper taxing authorities, allowing use of that money to
support the needs of the citizens of Duval County."
The Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution uses
proprietary identity analytics to detect fraudulent activity and
erroneous filings by cross-checking customer records against more
than 10,000 public records and commercial data sources. By
reviewing existing exemptions, the solution can help detect key
indicators for fraud or non-compliance, including duplicate
exemption filings and family members receiving deductions under a
deceased property owners' name.
"Homestead exemption fraud is a
real problem for many Florida
counties, particularly when many residents erroneously claim a
vacation property as their primary residence," said Haywood Talcove, CEO, Government, LexisNexis
Risk Solutions. "Brevard County
and Duval County have joined a
growing number of Florida counties
that are using the Homestead Fraud Detection Solution to crack down
on this challenge. They're all using the solution to effectively
save time and resources that would normally be required to track
down and verify multiple properties and, in the process, have
identified millions of dollars of new-found revenue."
"Brevard County, Duval County, and the other counties that are
using the Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution are models
for successfully identifying homestead exemption fraud and using
those insights to better their communities," said Richard (Chip) Cooke, Jr., CEO, TMA, which
investigates the findings by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, verifies
the information, and prioritizes accounts for collection. "They
have proven that using an external solution—rather than relying
solely on internal, manual auditing—can accurately unveil millions
of dollars of new tax revenue that can be put to good use."
For more information, please visit
http://www.lexisnexis.com/risk/products/government/homestead-exemption.aspx.
About Tax Management Associates
Since 1979, Tax Management Associates (TMA) (www.tma1.com) has been
assisting state and local tax officials in their day to day duties
of administering the property tax. TMA is made up of an experienced
management team, accounting professionals and other specialized
individuals, comprising over 140 people in offices across
the United States. TMA's expertise
lies in leveraged technology and a deep knowledge of local taxation
practices to assist its clients in discovering and processing
missing sources of revenue. These sources of revenue include
business taxes, income taxes and improperly filed exemptions. TMA
has performed similar services for over 500 client jurisdictions in
twenty states.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk
Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to
provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities
reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the
globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of
industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and
government. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout
the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global
provider of information and analytics for professional and business
customers across industries. For more information, please visit
www.risk.lexisnexis.com, and www.relx.com.
Media Contact:
Sara Herrmann
202.857.4610
571.213.6866 Mobile
sara.herrmann@lexisnexisrisk.com
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SOURCE LexisNexis Risk Solutions