LexisNexis Risk Solutions Helps Harris County Entities in Texas Save Nearly $20 million in Tax Revenue

ATLANTA and WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2018

In just the first 18 months of use, the LexisNexis® Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution found $21,076,592 in erroneous homestead exemption filings across Houston and other locales in the county. The technology has been an integral component of Harris County Appraisal District's ongoing efforts to improve the auditing process and ensure the integrity of its homestead exemption program, which can lower qualifying homeowners' property taxes.

The Harris County Appraisal District is responsible for discovering and appraising property for ad valorem tax purposes for each property in the district. It is the largest appraisal district in Texas and one of the largest in the U.S., with approximately 1.8 million parcels of property assessed each year with a market value of approximately $575 billion.

The Harris County Appraisal District is the latest – and largest – in a series of success stories of Texas Appraisal Districts using the technology to recoup potential lost tax revenue. Fort Bend County initially recaptured more than $2.3 million in lost revenue due to homestead exemption erroneous and fraudulent filings in 2016, and several other counties saved millions more in tax revenue using the LexisNexis Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection Solution. 

The LexisNexis Risk Solutions technology was used to examine Harris County's homestead exemption filings by combining them with the company's public records data, identity analytics and advanced linking technology to help investigators detect erroneous and fraudulent filings, collect taxes resulting from these filings, and identify new sources of revenue.

"At a time when local governments are facing rising costs and shrinking tax bases, new analytics technologies are helping local officials keep tax rates in check by stemming the tax fraud that has cost some communities millions of dollars in lost revenues annually," said Matthew Donahue, Director, Tax and Regulatory Markets, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. " Our Homestead Exemption Fraud Detection technology serves honest taxpayers by helping local governments identify, locate and collect from those individuals in their jurisdictions who are erroneously, unfairly or illegally claiming false exemptions."