Custom Columns enable fast, efficient compliance investigations

Custom Columns is a valuable new feature in Harmari Search, which will open up the metadata associated with Craigslist ads into a tabular format making it easy for compliance investigations.  You can go with our recommended presets, or select your own columns in our easy selection interface.  If you make a mistake, no problem; simply

WIC and SNAP benefits trafficking on Craigslist

A sample of Craigslist ads were taken to identify welfare benefits (SNAP, WIC) being trafficked.  Harmari Search can help to identify both benefits recipients and participating vendors who are buying/selling SNAP EBT or WIC benefits on Craigslist. Finding SNAP EBT cards for sale on Craigslist is an obvious welfare fraud violation.  In fact many in

Click-Thru Affiliate Nexus

21 States have passed or pending Click-Thru or Affiliate Nexus legislation, and 12 states are considering it as of this writing.  The phenomenon is known as Click-Thru because it requires an out-of-state retailer to use an in-state marketing affiliate to promote his/her products through their e-commerce site.   Once customers have purchased product beyond $10,000 from that out-of-state retailer via the marketing affiliate, that retailer is now required to collect and remit sales tax to the state.  Now many state revenue agencies would call this the “Amazon Law” which compels the largest e-commerce retailer in the US to collect sales tax.  But there are many other high-grossing e-commerce sites with no retail presence that need to be added to this list as well:

  • Etsy (online hand-made arts and crafts site)
  • Ebay (online auction / retail site)
  • Groupon (Daily deals on products and services in major cities)
  • NewEgg (Electronics, computer parts, peripherals)
  • SteamPowered (Sells video games direct to consumer)
  • Overstock (Brand name surplus and over-produced items)
  • 6pm (name brand shoes)
  • BhPhotoVideo (photography, consumer electronics)

Many states also have specific language on what constitutes an affiliate solicitation.  For example, California requires an explicit “pushed” solicitation resulting in a transaction, such as an email.  Other states such as Illinois require merely a promotional coupon from that retailer.  Yet other states are unsure what scenarios constitute an affiliate solicitation.

That being said, technology exists that can help automatically harvest as many affiliates as possible in-state.  TaxCrawler can make the task of finding these sites very easy.  This leads the state agency to merely codify the rules around affiliate nexus, and let TaxCrawler do the digging on the internet.

Here are some examples of Affiliate Nexus that can be extracted.

Estimated Total AirBnB Host Revenues by City

Popular short term rental booking websites like AirBnB have demonstrated that the internet can be a lucrative marketplace that tax and revenue must heed.  In fact, the $25 Billion valuation should be further evidence of the value of a grey-market for tax called the Sharing Economy.  Tax Discovery departments for the state, city and county

LTAS Celebrates 4 years – Thank you customers

Hooray!  LTAS Technologies is celebrating 4 years of providing quality investigative tools to help fight fraud and criminal activity online.  We have worked with over 130 customers in 7 different countries around the world! We thank all our customers and if you were wondering what customers we have, below is a breakdown of their industry

Harmari Gallery for archived images

Customers have been frustrated in the past when obtaining deleted Craigslist ads without the pictures via the Harmari Search Forensic View.  Well that has changed going forward, because now Harmari Search archives image content for certain categories: cars & trucks, boat, RV, motorcycle, and heavy equipment.  Partial coverage of those categories exists starting from December

Bing Birds-eye gives you a fresh perspective on satellite imagery

Bing Maps provides a fresh alternative to Google Maps as a free resource for satellite imagery.  Specifically it has to do with the Birds Eye feature, which gives you an aerial view at 40 degrees from vertical.  The pictures are not shot by satellites but by aircraft with specially designed remote sensing technology.   Birdseye works

$10k staged home burglary found via pawn shop records

Suppose an insured claims a burglary occurred and valuables were stolen in the amount of $10,000.  Would an insurance investigator think of ulterior motives for the money?  Would an SIU investigator think of searching pawn shop records to find the very same items in the claim were pawned?  Well that’s exactly what happened in the

5 Reasons why 1099K data won’t fill in the tax gap

With oil prices down 50% since Fall 2014, state revenue agencies are seeking ways to overcome the shortfall without increasing taxes.  The simplest answer is improved enforcement: discovery, lead development, audit and collections are key aspects of that.  The IRS’s IRMF data by state payee from 1099K filings is a good start if you haven’t