It sounds like all they should even have to do is wave a piece of paper in front of a judge and they would then dismiss the case, but I know things don’t work like that in the real world… It sounds like this thing has already spiraled well out of logical and honest approaches. What the city is trying to pull should be(and might be for all I know) completely illegal. This is almost like bait and switch fraud, so now I wonder if something else like this has occurred in the city’s recent history?

@Skitchin
It’s okay, the law is only there to keep citizens in line, since when have the govt./police ever been obligated to follow it?

Bleh, this is fuzucked up, Good luck guys.

The state of Michigan were a-holes to the Boy Scouts and Owassippe camp in Muskegon. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me, but I hope the group gets through this and things get straightened out.

as to whether this was a legitimate surprise or not…

the county i grew up in does this sort of stuff to people all the time. an old man in town tore down a derelict building, which the county assessed to be an increase in the value of his property. a long time (3-4 years) went by before the assessor’s office figured out it was gone and upped the assessment of his property. the assessor at some point talked to his neighbors and figured out on what date the building was torn down, then claimed he tried to hide the “improvements” from them. so the first visit he got was to be served with a delinquency notice that said he needed to pay an absurd sum or they were going to auction off his stuff.

if it can happen here (WA) i can see it happening anywhere.

@Ron, nope they can do this the moment you file, and they do.

voted for Obama? now get use to this

Assuming that this *isn’t* a mistake, and is a malicious act, how could we help? Ideas anyone?

Here’s the contact information for the Township:

1720 Riverview Drive,
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49004-1099

Phone: 269.381-8080
Fax: 269.381-3550

I’m not a fan of speculating based off a one sided story. Like many others have said: The gov’t may be stupid, but they don’t just do this sorta thing for gits and shiggles.

While I personally am pissed with the state of Michigan for revoking the several thousand scholarships many of us university students had, I say we should wait to hear the other side of the story.

This is so one-sided because the other side refuses to show and explain their heinous persecution.

Seriously providing communities with free pc’s ? teaching for free?!?! Encouraging our youth to better them selves?!?!? How could you !!!!!

They should (if this doesnt get cleared up) create a format so we can make donations. This is worth saving if it actually gets that far. Keep us informed how this plays out.

I’m with others in wondering what is the real motive here. Is there another side to the story or is it shady and underhanded taxation?

Please keep us updated and if there is anything we can do.

Get a court injunction barring the seizure of the assets while the case is being reviewed. I’ll donate to them but not for paying the apparent township blackmail – but for legal defense and perhaps a CPA. If they owe the back taxes, fine: pay the taxes. If not, get a tax lawyer and stick it to them (EFF have one on staff?). After the bad PR, I would hope there would be some changes in the township’s personnel.

Although I’ve only heard one side of this story, it seems a real shame that this could not be worked through mediation or a more-amicable (adult) way.

just submitted to CBS 2 news in Chicago as a news tip. Hope it helps.

@jeff-o

I think what therian was talking about was the fact that we have a democrat in office and democrats don’t take too well to hackers or hacker-related things. Cyber crime is more of a democrat priority than republican and they tend to label hackers and criminals.

The Best of 2600 has some good examples in it of what I mean.

The property taxes they are being charged are taxes on the land and building. The contents inside the building unless a motor vehicle such as a car, truck or boat can not be taxed. If they have a $1.5m robot good for them.

In South Carolina the state, county, or city can only seize the land and building. They must allow you to recover your belongings.

Tax exempt orgs must still pay property taxes as they help fund the emergency services that that location might need such as the Fire Department or EMS services. If you want to find out how many notices were given all you have to do is search the local newspapers tax notices. In most states the tax office is required to post delinquent accounts in the newspaper.

They had a chance to dispute this through their lawyer, but didn’t. 22:30 to 24:00 of the board meeting video is relevant, but 23:40 is the key point.

I wonder why not?

this is not non profit, its negative profit.
it’s ridiculous, it’s absurd.
I would like to see some proof to support “Nonya-Biz”‘s comment..
not that i care whether or not our president was born in the country, just as long as he wasn’t born and raised and trained in ‘Red China’ or something, coming to fuck up the country.. but that is why we have checks and balances.
there is no reason that the Nerd Herd should be taxed. obviously the Michigan Dept. of Treachery is unaware of the secret CIA facility that lies beneath the hackerspace

@Rhyno

I wasn’t saying I agree with therian. I’m saying that democrats focus on cyber-related stuff more. I’m stuck in a state with the govenator slashing s**t left and right that should not be slashed (or at the bottom of the list) and frankly, I’m sick of the republican’s conservative bull crap. I’ve lost trust in our system and our government, but I’m also to the point right now where I hope that we don’t have a republican president after Obama’s 4-8 years in office. Then again, the trends are starting to look like the late 80′s to early 90′s all over again. I sure hope it isn’t because I really don’t want to have to go through that again.

I’ve been watching the tax war for a while. This boils down to a few different levels of taxes. In Michigan you pay taxes to the State, Local and County governments.

These taxes are property taxes on the value of the building and land. Businesses in MI also have to pay PERSONAL property taxes. These are assets other than those covered by the above state property tax. So the contents of the building, machines, vehicles, etc are covered there.

The KZOO township assessor used the newspaper to assess the personal property taxes of TGG. So when a few 1.3M$ prototype robots are mentioned, the local assessor decided to tax it at that value. Never mind that they are non-functional and are basically worth scrap value, hence why KUKA donated them.

Since the levels of government in Michigan above the local level use the local assessors assessment to set what they are going to tax, it sets off a taxation chain reaction.

At this point TGGs legal counsel is of the opinion that there are no legal means to avoid the taxes. It needs to be a legislative solution. So that means Ganholm (governor), Thomas M. George (R)(state senator) or Larry DeShazor (R)(state rep).

So I think its kind of up in the air about what is going to happen next.

let’s do the Haiti thing for Michigan, y’all

@jeditalian, talking about McCain he was born at a naval base in coco solo, panama.

The folks who run local government are generally the worst cross-section of lifetime public trough feeders. Google Rep. Laura Richardson to see the kind of idiot who represents my district. I would love to arrainge a meeting between her and Marvin Heemeyer. Good luck to you guys.

Ask Chris Boden where the $20,000 per month it takes to heat the building comes from. He says he has no money. He has money to pay their taxes. He’s been ignoring the bills for years now.
Ask him when the last time a kid was in his building being educated. He says he educates youths. But where are they?
He has a building full of junk. He claims to have over a thousand members. The building is empty most of the time. And he wants to charge dues for access to his pile of junk.

hahaha! Protip: most trolls try to *hide* their trollishness at first.

Here’s what really happened: I flew to Kalamazoo with two big bags of $20′s to help Mr.Boden with his tax problem. Mlohkcots saw me at the airport with the money bags and followed me to the Geek Group building. The tax auditors were already harassing Mr. Boden. Boden gave me a nod and it was on. I put Mr.Mlohkcots and one of the tax guys in a headlock. Mr. Boden knew my hands were full (I had to protect the money as well) so he put the other tax guy in a full nelson. We made them cry and they said that the police would be called. Not good. I gave Mr. Mlohcots bus fare and left without giving Boden the money. I felt bad so I flew home in coach class.

The videos are all you need to see what’s going on.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Physicsduck
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=thegeekgroup
Watch and think objectively.

My understanding is that they weren’t aware of the change of their tax status until the time limit on judicial appeals had passed, because of backdated taxes.

As the story in the videos goes, the Kalamazoo township claims that they sent a single letter (not registered mail) when they decided to tax the geek group, who they had previously accepted as a registered non-profit org. A letter which the Group says it did not receive. Then no further communication was attempted until they put notices on the building saying they were going to seize and auction it off.

@Pyrodog – maybe I missed it, do you have any reason to believe the deadlines had not passed by Sept 2009?

One word-countersuit. Are any of your associates from Canada or Mexico? If so you can claim this to be “tantamount to dispropriation” under Nafta and just decide how many zeros to add to your suit.

>>Original Anon

I used to go to this place and help out all the time. The problem is that it’s helter-skelter in this place, it’s been that way since day 0…
A sheer lack of effort in organization surly played a role here.

Orv, I am impressed how you manage to sound well informed, without doing even the minimal research. Check-out the Michigan Nonprofit Association for information on property taxes. Geek Group is qualified to be completely tax exempt. Now that they have a lawyer, I’m sure they will be in the future. The main problem is the back taxes. Since the case was dismissed with prejudice for filing after the deadline, it can only be resolved by paying the back taxes and looking for a legislative solution.

Here is a link to more information about taxes to non-profit organizations in Michigan:

http://www.mnaonline.org/buzz0904.asp

They are delinquent in tax payment. Tax-exempt in state and federal do not exempt from all taxes just greatly reduce it. Besides, tax laws change as governments try to pay for promised services and state employees. Around this tax-audits for everyone whom made a mistake is being sent. They make mistakes and so do people. Is this Geek Group trying to profit, you bet. Is Geek Group in the wrong here, maybe. Is the government wrong in auditing them if there is a question or problem in their taxes, no. Is Geek Group going to be judged harshly for trying to profit on this, most likely.

Someone needs to get the tax assessors personal phone numbers and post them here so people can call and lodge their protest against this crime. Ruth Blake is married to Robert L. Blake. I haven’t found a phone number for either yet, but working on it. Haven’t checked on the other lady yet either.

Wow a new low for comments on hackaday, party politics. IMO general discussion of politics is a valid thing when there is legislation pending that would effect hackers and DIY. Party politics is a dead end street, hopefully hackaday will discourage it to the extent it can, when allowing anonymity.

Like comments here we can only take what the group’s BOD has to say at face value. I do suspect there’s a strong chance of shenanigans on the pat of the city on for the behalf of friends, and the fact that the property would more likely benefit more folks locally if it where own by a for profit enterprise paying taxes AND salary/wages.

On the part of the group I suspect the mail was ash canned unopened on the basis of the return address and ignorance of a volunteer. A volunteer who had heard we are a non-profit, so we don’t pay taxes too many times, so they didn’t think they had to bother with it. Yes speculation on my part, but based on what I have members of other volunteer administrated groups do. Evidently no one was paying attention to the legal notices in the official city newspaper. Where most local governments post who are arrears in their taxes and how much. I’m guessing the stated membership numbers reflect how many have registered at their web page, not the number of persons able to use the facility regularly. In the event that the register members may be actually learning from using the web page, I can’t hardly say the numbers are misleading

Demand free taxes for 20 years just because. In Ohio FedEx (world headquarters) has a tax free location in the city of Green Ohio (between Akron and Canton). Just because. Politicians do that for rich people (orphans puppy dogs babys etc.) they think will help them out I think they call it corruption and bribery but no one in Ohio has been convicted yet so the lawyers got an angle on it and must have a new name for the old BS. As far as dealing with the low level jokers you will get nowhere. That kind of privilege comes from the top. Zoning health and taxing authorities are not flexible in any form. So If you can make like a orphaned baby with a puppy dog you are in there or else if you got 10 billion $$ you wont have to pay otherwise your screwed.

“politics is a dead end street,”

Politics is just arguing about how to use the monopoly on violence that just hurts everyone in the long run.

I would encourage this group to NOT pay these taxes and stand their ground, possibly even pack up and leave to another town that won’t harass them and try to steal their property.

I can’t believe taxes in the states. It’s just so ridiculous. And the politics, its a rat race.

If this non-profit organization obsessed over stealing oil from Iraq on humanitarian grounds, or writing reports on how to sell criminal agendas to the public, this would never have happened. Taxes are meant to float scumbags, and sink good people. Proof is all around you in this crumbling, rat hole society of ours.

How did this turn out???