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Man owed $134 in property taxes. The District sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed
washington post. ^

Posted on 09/07/2013 11:27:30 PM PDT by RC one

On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb.

Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.

All because he didn’t pay a $134 property tax bill.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: propertytaxes
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To: RC one; Cvengr

I assume you’re texting this from your car, because you’re driving over there right now to teach those JBTs a lesson, right?


41 posted on 09/08/2013 1:27:30 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake

our forefathers would have started shooting 20 years ago.


42 posted on 09/08/2013 1:28:13 AM PDT by RC one
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To: RC one
Oh, of course they would have, of course.

They just shot people randomly all the time, I'm sure.

But you aren't, apparently.

Why is that, exactly?

43 posted on 09/08/2013 1:34:31 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake

what good would that really serve?


44 posted on 09/08/2013 1:34:42 AM PDT by RC one
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To: RC one
The way you're talking about it, you make it seem like some kind of moral imperative.
45 posted on 09/08/2013 1:37:39 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake

shot people randomly? who is talking about shooting people randomly besides you? You are attempting to change this dialogue to something that it is not. I have merely stated that were I, hypothetically, a 76 year old man being forced onto the street over a $136 tax bill, like Bennie Coleman, I would have killed them . The fact is, what I’m really saying is that I surely wouldn’t have faulted Mr. Coleman if he did, in fact, start shooting as I feel he would have been justified and were I on his jury, he would walk. I have no desire to kill anyone but, at the same time, I have no problem seeing the agents of a tyrannical government dieing as they impose the will of the tyrannical government on the people. No problem with it all. and neither did our forefathers.


46 posted on 09/08/2013 1:47:08 AM PDT by RC one
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To: RC one
If you think the Founders were in the habit of killing tax agents of the British Crown, you probably need to refresh your early American history.

That isn't how it happened.

They fought a war, quite formally, with rules of engagement and as much of the eighteenth century niceties as they could muster.

Then, almost as soon as they were finished, they put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

47 posted on 09/08/2013 1:56:04 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake
They fought according to the customs of their times, though not always. Francis Marion fared quite well when employing unconventional and often brutal guerrilla tactics. But it isn't how they fought that is pertinent to this discussion, it is why they fought that matters and that can be summarized in one word-taxation. If you wanted to get more specific, you could say taxation without representation-paying taxes to a government that did not represent their interests. So yes, I say they would have been shooting by now.
48 posted on 09/08/2013 2:19:23 AM PDT by RC one
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To: RC one
You should also know that the Founders followed the practice of putting people like Bennie Coleman in prison for nonpayment of debts.

It wasn't until the Jackson administration that civil bankruptcy laws replaced civil imprisonment as the remedy for defaults in many states.

That's right, civil imprisonment.

49 posted on 09/08/2013 2:20:23 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: RC one

They we denied the right to elect their representatives. You are not.


50 posted on 09/08/2013 2:21:51 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: John Valentine

I wouldn’t put it beyond the city sending those notices “accidentally on purpose” to the wrong address.

Wells Fargo just spent 3+ years grinding down a dude in SO Cal who they foreclosed on BY MISTAKE which they admitted, but then wouldn’t undo. The guy died IN COURT as resolution was about to come to him.


51 posted on 09/08/2013 2:26:54 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: JLS
What a pathetic article trying to blame the business people who bought the liens.

Well these "business people," as you call them, are nothing but low-life bottom feeders. They're taking advantage of a corrupt system and literally stealing properties in cahoots with local governments, which should not be selling tax liens, period. It's a racket---a $134 tax bill turns into a $5,000 bill? Give me a break...

52 posted on 09/08/2013 2:28:07 AM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: JLS

The man spent his life voting for a government (DC) designed to take my money - and it bit him in the rear.

Good.


53 posted on 09/08/2013 2:29:26 AM PDT by patton (“Really? Have you tried chewing cloves?”)
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To: Cvengr

In case you hadn’t noticed, the current “authority” isn’t legitimate any more. You see Feinswein asking Holder to not enforce immigration LAW? You see Holder failing to uphold his oath of office as a public servant and defend DOMA? How about NSA’s massive violations of LAW with respect to our effects?

Many more can be found, but if you think the government gets to pick and chose what laws it gets to enforce or abide by, or ride roughshod over us with, while we don’t, you’ve got another “think” coming...


54 posted on 09/08/2013 2:37:29 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: wideawake

Get off your high horse on the freakin’ law/legal aspect of it. You might have an argument that held water if the government operated with any sense of fairness or actual justice, but it is so BLATANTLY obvious that the law currently exists merely to satisfy their whims, and pigeon hole us into submission, that you’re defense of it merely makes you sound like a gutless bootlicker...


55 posted on 09/08/2013 2:43:56 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: wideawake

what do you think, as a percentage of a man’s annual income, the forefathers took in the form of taxes? 1%? 2%. Whereas today, after adding up income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes, use taxes, school taxes, medical device taxes, social security taxes, capital gains taxes, special tax levies, etc, it is closer to 50% if not over 50%. Most of our founders would not have been OK with that. they went to war over less. And all of this is irrelevant BS which ignores the fact that stealing a man’s home over a $136 debt is criminal.


56 posted on 09/08/2013 2:47:34 AM PDT by RC one
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To: Wally_Kalbacken

The DC government is so messed up they can’t properly account for R/E tax bills or water which they estimate. If you protest your water bill they pay it from the R/E tax you paid and default you that way

It may well be that this person did not owe any money at all


57 posted on 09/08/2013 2:57:09 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: RC one

Where I live, you have until the last minute to pay the back taxes and it’s advertised as a tax sale with the amount owed. If a 76 year old couldn’t pay $134 or needed help paying, we as neighbors would have done it. I’m in NY state, granted upstate, and we would never let this happen to a neighbor. DC really sucks!


58 posted on 09/08/2013 3:13:39 AM PDT by MacMattico
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To: John Valentine
How many demands for payment did he ignore?

He probably doesn't know since he's battling dementia.........

59 posted on 09/08/2013 3:22:42 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (')
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To: MacMattico

ya know, if they can take his house and auction it off to pay a measly $134 bill, they can come in and take his television set and sell it on craig’s list to pay the debt. but they didn’t think to do that though, did they? Oh no. Those criminal SOBs went right for his house. If we’re a nation of laws and representatives, our representatives need to pass a law that makes it illegal for the government to seize a man’s house over tax debts. ever. period. end of story. That sounds very reasonable to me and like something that conservatives and liberals might actually be able to agree on scarily enough.


60 posted on 09/08/2013 3:27:09 AM PDT by RC one
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