Boundary fraud: does anyone care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I am seriously considering renting a one-bedroom apartment WOTP or in Takoma Park when my kid hits middle school. We will sleep there Sun-Thurs, and go home to our house IB for Wells/Coolidge for the weekend. If you are being taxed on a rental or a second home - you are supporting the schools. Flame away.

I think if you are *actually* leaving there Sunday-Thursday, that’s the majority of the week, and so that’s your residence, and so you aren’t committing boundary fraud.

What’s more interesting, is that out of a multitude of potential options, this one makes sense somehow.

We have lived in Takoma, DC for 20+ plus years and the middle school/high school have been awful the entire time. So, we either kill ourselves to afford private school, pay tuition to MoCo - but then you could be sent to school wherever they have space (e.g., Germantown) or get a cheap rental and squeeze ourselves into it for the minimum amount of time you need to be there to be IB. Kids could get into test-in or OOB lottery, but if not, camping in one bedroom might be our option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I am seriously considering renting a one-bedroom apartment WOTP or in Takoma Park when my kid hits middle school. We will sleep there Sun-Thurs, and go home to our house IB for Wells/Coolidge for the weekend. If you are being taxed on a rental or a second home - you are supporting the schools. Flame away.

Do it, nobody's business but yours. I wouldn't advertise the arrangement though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I am seriously considering renting a one-bedroom apartment WOTP or in Takoma Park when my kid hits middle school. We will sleep there Sun-Thurs, and go home to our house IB for Wells/Coolidge for the weekend. If you are being taxed on a rental or a second home - you are supporting the schools. Flame away.

Do it, nobody's business but yours. I wouldn't advertise the arrangement though.

As long as you actually live there 50%+ 1 second of the time, you are completely on the up-and-up legally.

[Anonymous]

If you plan to actually live in the apartment there’s very little chance it wouldn’t be almost a wash with the cost of private school after a year-long lease, furniture, second set of many items, etc.

Yes, you could find a basement apartment for 1400 somewhere in boundary for the school you want, but you’re not going to really want to live there four nights a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you plan to actually live in the apartment there’s very little chance it wouldn’t be almost a wash with the cost of private school after a year-long lease, furniture, second set of many items, etc.

Yes, you could find a basement apartment for 1400 somewhere in boundary for the school you want, but you’re not going to really want to live there four nights a week.

Yeah I mean clearly PPs are going to "live" in their basement studio rental.

[Anonymous]

Much safer and more economical to buy a small place and let friends of relatives rent it off the books. It's been done many times before.

[Anonymous]

There is a rule that if you started at one school and you move to another boundary zone then you can stay grandfathered in at the original school. Are any of you sure that this isn’t the case with these situations you’re speaking about? Like do you know where the families were living years ago? Could it have very well been in boundary at the school in question?

[Anonymous]

Op here. This is definitely not the case. They moved a few years before the kid started prek3. Even before they entered the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a rule that if you started at one school and you move to another boundary zone then you can stay grandfathered in at the original school. Are any of you sure that this isn’t the case with these situations you’re speaking about? Like do you know where the families were living years ago? Could it have very well been in boundary at the school in question?

Is this published rule? I heard of kids who live out of bounds taking the in-person spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I am seriously considering renting a one-bedroom apartment WOTP or in Takoma Park when my kid hits middle school. We will sleep there Sun-Thurs, and go home to our house IB for Wells/Coolidge for the weekend. If you are being taxed on a rental or a second home - you are supporting the schools. Flame away.

Why would you move to Takoma Park to attend a DC school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I am seriously considering renting a one-bedroom apartment WOTP or in Takoma Park when my kid hits middle school. We will sleep there Sun-Thurs, and go home to our house IB for Wells/Coolidge for the weekend. If you are being taxed on a rental or a second home - you are supporting the schools. Flame away.

Why would you move to Takoma Park to attend a DC school?

I would not, but we’re IB for Coolidge - so we would rent IB for Takoma Park, MD and live there for exactly 51% of the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a rule that if you started at one school and you move to another boundary zone then you can stay grandfathered in at the original school. Are any of you sure that this isn’t the case with these situations you’re speaking about? Like do you know where the families were living years ago? Could it have very well been in boundary at the school in question?

Is this published rule? I heard of kids who live out of bounds taking the in-person spots.

Yes, it is in the handbook. Supposedly you lose feeder rights in this case, but I seriously doubt that part has ever been enforced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If someone pays taxes in DC and owns/rents multiple residences in DC, I have no problem with them picking one as their IB school. I also don’t have a problem with a DC resident who uses a DC family member caretaker (grandma/grandpa)‘s address for an IB address. I think residency fraud is different hill of beans.

Trouble is that by reporting their rental property as their primary residence, they are also committing tax fraud. DC has a very low tax rate for one’s primary home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If someone pays taxes in DC and owns/rents multiple residences in DC, I have no problem with them picking one as their IB school. I also don’t have a problem with a DC resident who uses a DC family member caretaker (grandma/grandpa)‘s address for an IB address. I think residency fraud is different hill of beans.

Trouble is that by reporting their rental property as their primary residence, they are also committing tax fraud. DC has a very low tax rate for one’s primary home.

No, you take the homestead deduction at one property of the other, spend plenty of time at both, and pay all your DC tax. The District just doesn't care about anything more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If someone pays taxes in DC and owns/rents multiple residences in DC, I have no problem with them picking one as their IB school. I also don’t have a problem with a DC resident who uses a DC family member caretaker (grandma/grandpa)‘s address for an IB address. I think residency fraud is different hill of beans.

Trouble is that by reporting their rental property as their primary residence, they are also committing tax fraud. DC has a very low tax rate for one’s primary home.

You wouldn't have to report it that way on your taxes, though. You can prove residency in some other way to dcps -- it's not like they cross-check that with everyone's taxes. If they investigate, you're more likely to get caught maybe, but it's not like residency fraud where you'll owe money. I still don't think this is ethical.