West Virginia Tax Official Tries To Stop Website From Posting Public Tax Maps
from the follow-the-money dept
Paul Alan Levy writes "The county tax assessor in Charleston, West Virginia, has sued a local tech company that had the audacity to post public tax maps from the entire state of West Virginia on its web site. The company obtained the maps under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for a total charge of $20 for 28000 maps (the actual cost of copying electronic files to CDs). The tax assessor complains that she stands to lose the profit she makes by selling paper tax maps at $8 per sheet. Why should you care? If the county tax assesor wins her case, it could affect other Web sites and bloggers that make public government records available on the Internet." Apparently, what some people have a different idea of what "public" information means than others... especially when the government stands to profit from that information. While government documents cannot be covered by copyright, apparently some gov't officials feel that preventing their ability to profit off of that public data is illegal.
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Filed Under: public tax maps, west virginia
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West by gawd Va
Cue the banjo exit music...
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simple solution
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Re: simple solution
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tax maps in VA - same thing
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Greed
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Re: Greed
Thanks,
TriZz
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Re: Re: Greed
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Does anyone know?
I suppose the scribe's guild probably had a collective coronary, but Jesus, stories like this are an astounding and somewhat frightening glimpse into the narrowness of some people's perceptions.
Speaking of Jesus, perhaps Gutenberg got something of a "pass" because the first thing he printed were copies of a bible.
Sheesh.
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Re: Does anyone know?
Quite the opposite. The Church was used to being the sole authority on the bible. The only bibles were locked up in churches and people had to take the word of their priests that what they were being told (selling indulgences, etc) was actually in the bible. Once common people got their own copy of the bible, they found out this was not the case and many new religions popped up. It's no coincidence that the Protestant reformation began only a few decades after Gutenberg's presses started up.
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Re: Does anyone know?
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Guess what, if they stop getting that money, your taxes will go up. Think about it.
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Re:
:)
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Re:
Now if the lady in question is a record keeper and 90% of her job is dispensing records then perhaps she is more worried about losing her job due to lack of work than she is worried about the office getting paid for distribution of the free(as in your tax dollars previously paid for it as I mentioned) data they have. Ideally once the data is collected it should be provided online for free at taxpayer expense which should cost pennies per tax payer.
If the data is public record they need to provide it to the public when asked.
If the public demands a hard copy then the tax office has a right to be compensated for the costs involved in covering the overhead of providing that particular copy.
If that particular copy is then distributed free of charge by the purchaser of the copy the tax office deserves nothing as the documents distribution cost it nothing.
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Tax Maps In VA
Reference please?
This from Fairfax County VA web page:
http://icare.fairfaxcounty.gov/Main/Home.aspx
"This site provides assessed values and physical characteristics extracted from the official assessment records for all residential and commercial properties in Fairfax County. Click the Property Search tab above to begin searching by address or tax map reference number. From these links, you can also view residential sales within a property's assessment neighborhood. Please note, under Virginia State law these records are public information. Display of this information on the Internet is specifically authorized by Va. Code §58.1-3122.2 (1998). See the Virginia State Code to read the pertinent enabling statute."
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Re: Tax Maps In VA
used to be free- dig around and see they want you to be licensed....glad to see Fairfax is free!
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Re: Tax Maps In VA
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touches a deep issue
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Think about it. If the govt. can't charge money for people to see the documents, then they will either have to cut services or raise taxes.
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Re:
Ahem. Why is this exactly? The collection of this information has already been paid for by the taxpayer, as has the collation into the 28000 documents. Why should the government office hold a charged-for monopoly on supplying that information?
If the information is freely available on-line, a person can still go to the office and pay for the CD or printout but they have the choice to get it for free (at no cost to the county as it's a privately funded site).
Why should WV taxpayers be forced to pay $8 for a printout of public information they've already paid for?
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Re Anonymous Coward
What did they do before they started charging for this "service"??
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Re:
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Public Records
How is this a switch? Private companies have attempted to prevent governments from disseminating public data claiming that it would deprive them of revenue. I don't know what became of this bill, but in May 2005, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported "Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the Senate's third-ranking Republican, is pushing a bill that critics say would force the Weather Service to disseminate much of its data only to private companies."
Private companies have no entitlement to make money off public records. While they may have no entitlement, that doesn't mean they can't try to sell it either. However, they should never be allowed to prevent a government agency from making public data available to the public.
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Nonsense! How 'bout they just put the information on the web where it belongs (i.e., to everyone)? That means they could do away with a level of bureaucracy, save money and LOWER taxes.
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paid for
Why they need the extra money is a different issue. If they can justify this, they can probably justify bringing back the poll tax as well.
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If, as citizens, we just wanted to maximize the amount of money our various government offices could collect for performing their jobs (the ones we've already paid them to do), why stop at a measly $8 per sheet? Why not charge $8000? Or $8 million? That way, all you'd need to do is sell one copy and you'd make more money than if everyone in the county each bought a copy. I mean, there's got to be some developer or someone who's willing to pay $8 mil, right? And why stop at tax maps? Why not make access to the tax *code* cost money? So people would have to pay $100 just to find out how much tax they owed? That would raise lots of revenue, too. Right?
Also, just to point out one quibble with the initial story: Under US law, *federal* government works are unprotected by copyright. Works produced by state and local governments may still enjoy copyright protection (along with works produced by foreign governments, to the extent their own government's protect them).
by Anonymous Coward on Feb 6th, 2008 @ 11:22am
Ummm, as a citizen of WV, I would think you would want the tax office to collect money.
Guess what, if they stop getting that money, your taxes will go up. Think about it.
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One small comment
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When their revenue goes down, they will either cut services or raise taxes. Maybe some of you should live in the real world, but thats how it works. And you want the govt. to pay for healthcare too? Lower taxes, pay for healthcare. Yeah, that works.
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Re:
The charge is only supposed to cover the cost of printing the documents and the paper it is printed on, since the information being printed has already been paid for by taxes. If the demand for paper copies of the documents is lowered, the government will no longer have to purchase the same quantities of paper or ink. So while there will be a decrease in revenue, there will likewise be a decrease in expenses. Apparently the tax assessor is charging more than the cost of the supplies, which seems a tad unethical, considering the information is public record.
The information, while not free, has been paid for by the taxpayers of West Virginia. I fail to see why the state government should be allowed to turn a profit on public information.
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Someone once said "The world is comprised of two kinds of people: Idiots; and those clever enough to take indecent advantage of them."
Seems to be a case of exactly that, and to that end I have no problem with this situation. I take issue with her actions of trying to take it to the next level. Saying she has the exclusive right to distribute this information. For something like that people should be given the death sentance, and upon conviction drug out to a ditch and shot.
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Re:
No U.S. government branch, or agency, whether at the Federal, State, or local level exist to make a profit. Period. The government is supposed to exist to solely provide essential services. Taxes pay for that.
I would like to know how the $8 was derived for this service. I would bet the collector has not even documented the calculations. How long and how much does it take to make a copy?? 5 minutes to retrieve, and 1 minute to copy??
B.S.
If the woman is elected, her constituents should pull her short hairs. If she is appointed, her manager should have a "come to Jesus" talk with her.
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What if I drew my own map and used the information that *belongs* to me (as a member of the public) to mark out the tax areas, and posted *that* on the Internet. Would that be copyright infringement also?
Rofl, this is probably the one and only time that I can say that I am happy to live in Oklahoma.
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Greedy Scum!
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Greedy Scum!
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How is this government branch funded? By Taxes or by selling maps? If it is by selling the maps then we have a major problem with our government. The office of taxation should be fully funded by your tax dollars. If they have to raise taxes because the office can not afford to stay open, then I think they need to manage our dollars better.
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Any corporation that has been around long enough to have seen both good and bad times knows that you must adapt to the market. Perhaps you can't do the huge IT rollout you wanted, or start a bunch of new projects, and you may even need to lay off a couple of people. Government needs to be run more like a corporation in that fashion. They need to realize that their funds may not always be where they want them to be and they need to learn to get by with what they have.
I know our local Govt Property Appraiser/Tax Collector has huge ways they could cut back. A friend of mine in their IT department told me that every year in the last quarter the head of the IT department gets everyone together and tells them how much money they have to spend before the end of the budget year. The particular year he was talking about they ended up spending $400k in stuff they didnt really need just so that their budget was not cut for the next year. A year later half of it was still in the boxes.
If that were my company, that Director would be in the unemployment line.
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West Virginia
And sing along with this old favorite:
I'm My Own Grandpa
( Lonzo & Oscar )
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.
Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life,
My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad,
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.
Father's wife then had a son who kept him on the run,
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.
Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild,
And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild,
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!
I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.
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Tax Assessor Backs Off -- for now
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Publishing tax data
These deserve zero copyright, yet they have it and you must pay arm + leg for a transcript of this data.
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Re: Publishing tax data
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Re: Chuck Norris' Enemy
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Selling public information
That information should not be made for sale to just anyone...especially on the web.
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tax maps
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tax maps
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