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(Bloomberg) -- Trinity Smith lost her home in Detroit because of unfairly high property taxes—and in the process, she handed over thousands of dollars to a multibillion-dollar money machine that benefits real estate speculators, big banks and the county government that foreclosed on her.
Nationwide data show that much of the debt that’s being sold never should have existed in the first place.
Wayne County, Michigan's use of Delinquent Tax Anticipation Notes is an extreme example of a nationwide phenomenon: Local officials use fines and foreclosures or tax lien sales as cudgels against people who haven’t paid their property taxes. Some municipalities’ efforts to securitize or sell the debts have led to a broad, upward transfer of wealth that’s rooted in fundamentally unfair tax systems.