Curtis Hertel, Jr., the Ingham County Register of Deeds, and Branch County Registrar Nancy Hutchins filed the suit, which alleges that the company and numerous banks failed to pay property transfer taxes when the title to the company was transferred to another owner in the MERS system.

“MERS created a shadow registry system that has made it very difficult for the public and for government offices like mine to keep track of who owns what mortgage,” Hertel said. “They have also stated they were created to avoid fees in my office. When we began the investigation into robo-signing I asked my attorneys to research MERS foreclosures to see if there were patterns of irregularity. This lawsuit is a direct result of that investigation. I believe there has been a systematic attempt to avoid paying taxes by MERS and the banks that use MERS.”

Hertel alleges the company has created a “shell game” designed to dodge taxes.

“MERS has transformed the entire mortgage industry into a giant shell game”, said Hertel. “The current servicer of a mortgage is no longer a matter of public record, and once a property is foreclosed, the real games begin, as deeds and other paperwork are filed in such a way to avoid transfer taxes at every step. Property ownership is clouded, and the simple task of collecting transfer tax has been turned into this legal battle, largely because of the involvement of MERS.”

The lawsuit also targets three foreclosure attorneys — Marshall Isaacs from Orlans Associations and Ellen Coon and Jeanne Kivi of Trott and Trott. Both Orlans and Trott and Trott have come under fire in recent months for participating in robo-signing. Both organizations are also significant Republican donors in Michigan.

Also of interest, David Trott’s Attorney’s Title company is named as a defendant. Trott owns what is considered the largerst foreclosure law firm in the state. Linda Orlans’ title agency eTitle is also named. Orlans’ runs Orlans Associates.

“I am seeking repayment of both state and county transfer tax. Without discovery it’s hard to tell you an exact number,” Hertel said. “I am positive its in the millions of dollars for both of them.”

This is not the first lawsuit Hertel has filed in relation to recovering millions of dollars of unpaid taxes arising from the title transfers. Earlier this year he sued Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and numerous banks over what he alleges is an improper claim to an exemption thus requiring the entities to pay millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.

“I hope everything we are doing gives the banks, MERS and foreclosure firms pause,” Hertel said. “We could avoid a lot of these situations if they just worked with individual citizens instead of pushing people into the foreclosure process.”

In an online campaign launched last week, Taxpayers for Common Sense urged voters to lobby supercommittee members against giving subsidies to energy companies.

According to the group’s Subsidy Gusher analysis, oil and gas companies are expected to get $78 billion in subsidies over the next five years.

Oil companies are resilient, the group argues, and made record profits even during the recent recesssion and despite major environmental disasters like the BP Gulf oil spill. They don’t need special suppot.

Taxpayers for Common Sense spokesman Mike Serresco said that his group, along with Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and even the Heartland Institute, a libertarian organization that denies climate change, are pushing cuts to energy company entitlements.

“If we had our way we would cut all energy subsidies,” he said. “Solyndra is a good example. The government is just a bad venture capitalist. You should let the private market do that kind of financing. In the case of oil and gas, which gets by far more in subsidies than renewables, those subsidies are just bolstering profits. They are put in place a century ago for reasons that are no longer valid.”

The Intangible Drilling Costs tax credit, for example, established in 1918, allows oil companies to deduct most of the expenses of drilling. With oil prices near $116 a barrel, it’s hard to argue that ending this deduction with impede exploration, yet this benefit is expected to cost $8.9 billion over the next five years.

Some of the other tax benefits designed for energy companies include:

Ultra-deepwater and Unconventional Natural Gas and other Petroleum Resources R&D

Cut: $190 million

Expensing of Exploration and Development Costs

Cut: $270 million

Percentage Depletion Allowance (Gas & Oil) (Excess of percentage of cost depletion)

Cut: $10.8 billion

Percentage Depletion Allowance (Coal)

Cut: $1.3 billion

Capital Gains Treatment for Royalties on Coal

Cut: $630 million

Domestic Manufacturing Deduction for Hard Mineral Fossil Fuels

Cut: $2.3 billion

Manufacturing Tax Deduction for Oil and Gas Companies (IRC Sec 199)

Cut: $15.9 billion

Geological and Geophysical Amortization

Cut: $1 million

Because these benefits are part of the tax code, any attempt to change them risks devolving into a politically difficult ideological battle over raising taxes, and the groups that are arguing to end these breaks must compete with the energy lobbyists that are defending them.

Exxon Mobil — the biggest U.S. oil company — has spent more than $10 million lobbying Congress so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Though energy companies have vastly more money to devote to framing the discussion on their tax breaks, they have been forced into a defensive position.

The oil lobby has ramped up television ads in the home districts of supercommittee members in which they frame ending their tax breaks as the creation of “job-crushing new energy taxes.”

In an interview on CNN on Sunday, American Petroleum Institute lobbyist Marty Durbin even claimed that oil companies don’t get any special treatment.

“There are no loopholes,” he said when asked to justify billions in tax breaks for oil companies that are showing record profits. “These are basic tax deductions that every industry is allowed to use.”

“The department was aware of Mr. Schimmel’s intent to restructure city administration as part of his financial and operating plan which was submitted on October 24, 2011,” Treasury Dept. spokesman Terry Stanton said via-mail Monday afternoon. “The department does not expect the restructuring of the city’s administration to have an adverse impact on Tuesday’s election or the election process.”

On Oct. 28 Schimmel installed his Deputy Emergency Manager Joe Sobota as city clerk and consolidated the city’s precincts.

The Detroit Free Press reports that some election workers apparently protested the changes by not showing up to work the polls this morning.

The protest forced Oakland County officials to find new poll workers, the Free Press reports, and Oakland County Clerk Bill Bullard, Oakland County’s elections director Joe Rozell, and Tom Juitje of Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office have gathered at the Pontiac City hall to help administer the election.

Pontiac voters are choosing a state representative in this election.

The conventional wisdom in Washington seems to be that another year-long extension of federal unemployment benefits is likely to be approved in Congress despite strong Republican opposition in the House.

The Hill reports:

Congress is expected to pass a yearlong extension of unemployment benefits before they expire, although the process is uncertain.

Advocates of reauthorizing the program feel confident that a yearlong extension will get tucked into one of several different bills that could pass by year’s end — a supercommittee budget deal or a tax extenders bill that would renew the Medicare ‘doc fix’ along with other expiring program provisions.

Without hitching a ride on one of those vehicles, the measure may have to fly solo, likely igniting a heated battle between Democrats and Republicans, inevitably pushing the fight to the brink of expiration…

A positive sign is that while talk about the issue has been subdued, discussions are escalating on reauthorizing the federal benefits, which expire Dec. 31, Conti said.

Democrats say they have the offsets if Republicans insist on them to fund the program without increasing deficit spending.

In June, a group of 28 plaintiffs from across the state filed suit against Snyder and Treasurer Andy Dillon over the new law that gives state-appointed Emergency Managers virtually complete control over financially-troubled local governments.

The plaintiffs argue that the law violates the state constitution’s “home rule” provisions and the Headlee amendment, which bans the state from enacting unfunded mandates (towns must pay the expenses of Emergency Managers assigned them).

They also say the the law violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches and tramples on voting rights.

The governor petitioned the Michigan Supreme Court to rule directly on these legal questions rather than waiting for the lower courts to rule on it first.

In an order issued this week the court said that it is still considering his request and asked Snyder to more fully explain why they should move the case from the trial court.

The court also asked both parties to file briefs on the questions raised in the case by Dec. 14.

John Philo, legal director for the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the high court should reject Snyder’s request to bypass the trial court and make an immediate decision in the case.

“Initial fact-finding and critical evidence occurs at the circuit court level,” said Philo. “This is why we have an established judicial system and for the governor to want to skip that process is troubling.”

In a conversation with the Detroit News Bing said that he would seriously consider taking the job if the governor asked him to become Emergency Manager.

“I think whether it’s me or somebody else, it’s going to probably happen.

“Now, would you rather deal with the devil that you know or the devil that you don’t know?”

As mayor Bing could ask the state to review the city’s finances. This would initiate a process that could lead to appointment of an Emergency Manager.

Bing has been unable to implement a deficit-elimination plan that relies on cutting pensions and employee benefits.

The Huffington Post reports:

“With almost five unemployed Americans for every job opening, too many people remain jobless because of a lack of work, not a lack of wanting to work,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a sponsor of the bill, said in a statement to HuffPost. “While this Republican Congress fails to support jobs legislation and continues to blame unemployment on the unemployed, more than two million Americans will soon lose their unemployment benefits.”

The federal government will stop paying extended unemployment claims starting in January unless Congress reauthorizes the benefits. Since 2008, people laid off through no fault of their own have been eligible for the extended compensation after they use up the standard 26 weeks of payments provided by states. Under current law, however, anyone who exhausts their state benefits or a tier of federal benefits in January will be ineligible for additional checks.

Without such an extension, two million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits by February. The question now is whether they can get the bill passed in the Republican-controlled House.

In Nov. 2010, in fact, Obama grilled Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the subject, challenging him to document how many jobs his agency’s stimulus spending had created — only five weeks after writing the last of ten letters to Chu asking for funding for solar and other energy projects in Michigan, arguing that those projects would create some 5,000 jobs in the state.

But Upton is hardly alone in this regard. Those letters were signed by all of the members of the Michigan congressional delegation, including several others who have argued that the stimulus bill has not created any jobs. Rep. Mike Rogers, for example, has claimed that stimulus spending only created one job in his district and very few in the state of Michigan.

Then-Rep. Pete Hoekstra, now running for the Republican nomination to challenge for Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat, went on CNN and said that the stimulus spending “has not helped my community or helped the state.” But he signed all of those letters arguing that spending on Michigan stimulus projects would create thousands of jobs.

Rep. Candice Miller likewise has said that the stimulus bill “has failed to provide the promised jobs.” Rep. Dave Camp has made the same claim:

“Michigan, which consistently has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, has been particularly hard-hit by the failings of the stimulus plan,” said Camp. “It is clear from today’s jobs report that stimulus has failed to do what it promised and failed to create jobs for American workers. Eight months after the President signed the stimulus bill, we are all still asking: where are the jobs?”

Rep. Thad McCotter gave a speech on the House floor asking, “Where are the jobs?”

It seems that every one of these legislators firmly believe that stimulus spending will create jobs in Michigan, which would be good for them politically, but somehow creates a negative number of jobs everywhere else. And Republican legislators in every other state seem to think the same thing of their state.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Pontiac’s newest Emergency Manager said that he wants to put together his own team to implement a financial plan that includes outsourcing services and increasing property taxes.

Under the plan, the clerk’s office is being merged with human resources. Vital records will be transferred to Oakland County and the Oakland County Clerk’s Office will provide technical assistance in election administration. The number of voting districts in Pontiac also will be reduced.

The law department in Pontiac, about 20 miles northwest of Detroit, is being outsourced to Troy-based Giarmarco, Mullins and Horton.

An employee with United Water, which is contracted to manage the city’s wastewater treatment facilities, will run the public works department. The employee will work at City Hall and efforts will be made to subcontract as many public works activities as possible, according to the plan.

In May, then-Emergency Manager Michael Stampfler privatized operation of the city’s wastewater treatment by signing a contract with United Water, a New Jersey-based subsidiary of the French company SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT that has been indicted on felony charges related to its operation of the wastewater treatment facility in Gary, Ind.

According to a 26 count indictment announced by the U.S. Justice Dept. in Dec., two United Water employees manipulated daily wastewater sampling at the Gary plant by turning up disinfectant levels before measuring the levels of E. coli bacteria and other contaminants.