Slightly related, I was reading this[0] over the weekend and it left me incensed. Behind a paywall, so relevant bits > Uri Rafaeli is an 83-year-old engineer

Slightly related, I was reading this[0] over the weekend and it left me incensed. Behind a paywall, so relevant bits > Uri Rafaeli is an 83-year-old engineer and great-grandfather. He never expected the government to treat him like a drug dealer or gang banger. But last year the Michigan Court of Appeals held that a county government could use civil asset forfeiture—the same legal process used by police to confiscate drug lords’ mansions—to seize a modest rental property Mr. Rafaeli owned because he accidentally underpaid his property taxes by $8.41. > Mr. Rafaeli bought the house through his business for $60,000 in 2011. Later that year he inadvertently underpaid his property’s taxes by $496. When he learned of his mistake in 2013, Mr. Rafaeli attempted to pay the debt in full but failed to account for the interest that had accumulated since he received the bill. He came up $8.41 short. > Unaware of his error, Mr. Rafaeli went on to pay his taxes in a timely manner in subsequent years. Nevertheless, in February 2014 Oakland County foreclosed on the property to collect the tiny debt, along with $277 in penalties, additional interest and fees. Six months later the county sold the property at auction for $24,500 and refused to refund Mr. Rafaeli any of the profits. > .... > The elderly, sick or economically distressed are most at risk of losing property over tax debts. Henderson Hodgens lost his childhood home and farm in Geneva Township, Mich., in 2014 when a hospitalization left him unexpectedly unable to pay his $5,900 debt. Benjamin Coleman—who suffers from dementia—lost his Washington, D.C., home when he forgot to pay a $134 tax bill. Public outrage over his story prompted District of Columbia officials to change a confiscatory law to protect property rights. > The Michigan Supreme Court agreed last month to hear Mr. Rafaeli’s case and will decide whether the Court of Appeals erred in its ruling that Oakland County had violated neither the Takings Clause nor the Michigan Constitution’s “just compensation” requirement. Mr. Rafaeli is prepared to take his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if need be, to stop bureaucrats from turning property tax collection into an instrument of government theft. Absolutely fucking appalling stuff. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-8-41-in-unpaid-taxes-the-government-took-uri-rafaelis-house-1544227055 https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-8-41-in-unpaid-taxes-the-go...