Treasurers Work Together To Investigate Homestead Fraud

money47-28
money47-28

A partnership that allows the Berrien County Treasurer’s Office help its counterparts in Van Buren County catch fraudulent homestead claims will continue for another three years. Berrien County Treasurer Bret Witkowski tells WSJM News his office lends its staff to the Van Buren County Treasurer’s Office to investigate incidents of property owners claiming a vacation or rental property as their home to get out of taxes. There are a few ways to catch them.

“There’s a lot of different ways that it happens,” Witkowski says. “One is people call. Two is people are not filing their tax returns from where they say they are or where their homestead is, and that’s public information.”

Witkowski says about $2 million in unpaid taxes have been collected in Berrien County as a result of the effort, and Van Buren, being a lakeshore county, can also recover quite a bit. Berrien helps Van Buren with the issue because the latter lacks the staff. Witkowski says the partnership costs his office about $15,000 per year, but it makes back more than that with a share of the interest on unpaid taxes it retrieves in Van Buren County.