Dead orgs still on the tax roll?

C3Marley checks each exempt parcel in Harris County against IRS and Texas Comptroller records, then lists the ones whose owner is on file as forfeited, ended or inactive, with the source behind every line. It’s a screening aid and makes no finding.

Check Harris Methodology

Harris County, TX. 10,560 exempt parcels. HCAD 2025 roll. Engine v3.8.

Comptroller status, exempt owners

HCAD 2025

Status	Parcels	Assessed	Points
FORFEITED	17	$6,233,743	+20
INVOL. ENDED	207	$199,694,054	+20 +10 SOS
INACTIVE	41	$43,443,963	+10
FRANCHISE EXEMPT	410	$3,381,878,349	0Not scored

Struck lines, scored: 265 parcels. Tax bill$5,516,843.94
Franchise-exempt, status not scored: 410 parcels, 110 owners. Tax bill$76,157,324.04

From data/processed/harris_ghost_exempt_v3_6.csv. INVOL. ENDED carries +20 for the ended franchise and +10 because all 207 are also SOS inactive. Franchise-exempt owners are not set up for franchise tax (Tax Code ch. 171), so that status adds no points. Other rules still apply: 167 of the 410 parcels score above zero.

How a parcel earns its chains

The Marley Score adds fixed points for each public-record signal. Nothing is tuned by hand. A higher score means a parcel deserves a closer look. It does not mean the exemption is wrong.

Each rule, its points, and the number of the 10,560 parcels it fired on.
Signal and source	Points	Fired on
IRS, county and state records
Still on the IRS auto-revocation list	+40	62
Not in IRS Pub 78	+30	141
Sales-tax permit at the address (data.texas.gov)	+30	232
TABC alcohol license at the address	+30	3
Vacant land, no building 2022 to 2025 (HCAD)	+25	418
Parsonage over the acreage cap (HCAD)	+25	37
Rental income on the IRS 990	+20	421
Several homes on one account (HCAD)	+15	97
Texas Comptroller franchise status
Forfeited, or franchise tax involuntarily ended	+20	224
Secretary of State status inactive	+10	248
Franchise-exempt (not set up for franchise tax)	0	410

Graduate Apartments

Acct 1157010000001. 1515 Bissonnet St 112, Houston TX 77005

Still revoked +40 EIN 760544742, revoked 15-NOV-2010
Not in Pub 78 +30
Comptroller: no match 0

Marley Score: 70
Assessed value: $26,150,742
Tax bill: $555,760.80

Check The engine flagged this row for manual review. The IRS match is on name only (GRADUATE APARTMENTS INC), because HCAD carries no EIN. The Comptroller search found no match, so the franchise rules added nothing. Confirm the entity before reading anything into the 70.

FORFEITED / INVOL. ENDED: The Comptroller shows the owner lost its right to transact business in Texas.
INACTIVE: The Secretary of State registration is inactive, per the Comptroller record.
FRANCHISE EXEMPT: The Comptroller API answers "Not set up for Franchise Tax". Common for churches, hospitals and schools. The status adds no points; other rules still apply.
AMBIGUOUS / NO_MATCH: The owner name matched several Comptroller records, or none. No franchise points. A parcel that scores anyway is marked Unconfirmed in the dashboard.

Look up an owner

Search the 110 franchise-exempt owners and the Graduate Apartments demo parcel. Pick one to see its second signal, its parcels and the HCAD lookup.

Owner name or account Matches any part of the HCAD owner name or a 13-digit account. The full roll of 10,560 parcels is in the dashboard.

Not a finding. The records below are name matches to check.

What the records say

Parcels

Acct	Address	Score	Assessed

Open HCAD property search and paste acct

Open these parcels in the dashboard

70 of 110 owners have a second signal

Franchise status adds no points for these owners, so we looked for one more free record on each: an exact-name IRS Pub 78 or EO BMF entry, an IRS revocation, or an HCAD pattern such as many parcels or an out-of-state mailing address. A signal can confirm an organization exists as easily as it raises a question. Secretary of State lookups are parked because SOSDirect charges per search.

From data/processed/franchise_exempt_second_signal_v3_8.csv. An owner can carry more than one signal.
Owners with at least one second signal	70
Exact-name IRS Pub 78 or EO BMF record	43
HCAD note (several parcels, out-of-state mail, commercial-style name)	47
IRS revocation name hits, ambiguous (all out of state): check by hand	9
On the IRS auto-revocation list	0
Not on the revocation list	101

Download CSV

Owner (HCAD)	Parcels	Assessed	Tax bill	IRS revocation	Records found
Loading the 110 owners. If this stays, use the CSV download.

Total, all 110 owners. Franchise status not scored.410 parcelsAssessed $3,381,878,349Tax bill $76,157,324.04

For officials, and the reporters who cover them

A flag is a reason to pull the file and read it.

Every line traces to a public file you can open yourself: the HCAD CAMA roll, IRS Pub 78, the auto-revocation list and EO BMF for Texas, data.texas.gov, and the Comptroller public data API. HCAD carries no EIN, so names are matched on their own and some matches are weak. Those are labeled.

Use it to choose what to review first. Sort by score, open a parcel and follow its source.
Check ambiguous matches by hand. At the Comptroller, 2,209 parcels came back AMBIGUOUS and 4,104 NO_MATCH, and none of them scored on franchise status.
Quote assessed value and tax bill as the HCAD 2025 roll gives them. We estimate nothing.
Don’t treat a score as a finding. Whether an exemption holds is for someone with the full file to decide.
Don’t read franchise-exempt as dead. Hospitals and churches are often exempt by law, which is why that status adds no points on those 410 parcels.

How the engine is wired

One pipeline on a schedule, with an adapter for each county. Four public sources feed one join. The rules are the same in every county.

1Address normalizer
Cleans owner names and site addresses so records from different agencies can meet: suffix folding (INC, CORP, CH) and USPS street forms.
every run
2Four sources, side by side
- IRSPub 78, auto-revocation list, EO BMF eo_tx.csv, 990-N, 990 XML rental linesweekly
- HCADCAMA real_acct, building_land, jur_value, permits. Every assessed value and tax billyearly roll
- Socratadata.texas.gov: sales-tax permits, franchise taxpayers, TABC, exempt entitiesdaily
- ComptrollerTax-account API: sosRegistrationStatus, rightToTransactTXweekly, cached
3Join
Name and address join, with a match type on every row. Ambiguous or missing Comptroller matches add no franchise points. Weak matches are flagged in the dashboard as Check or Unconfirmed; its key gives the exact rule.
every run
4Score
Fixed points per signal give the Marley Score, plus a breakdown that names every rule that fired. The output has one row per exempt parcel, with its HCAD assessed value and tax bill.
Writes harris_c3marley_2026.csv

Where it runs next

Harris County is live. Each other county has an adapter file that lists its sources and stops with a clear error until someone wires it up.

Harris County, TXLive
HCAD 2025 roll, 10,560 exempt parcels, Comptroller run final.
Orange County, FLStub
OCPA parcel data, FL DBPR licenses, IRS eo_fl.csv.
Cook County, ILStub
Cook County data catalog, revenue license portal, IRS eo_il.csv.
Los Angeles County, CAStub
data.lacounty.gov, IRS eo_ca.csv.
Maricopa County, AZStub
Maricopa County Assessor, IRS eo_az.csv.

API

The endpoint is reserved and answers with its plan. A FastAPI service will take its place. Until then, the published files are the API.

GET /api/c3marley

# 501 Not Implemented, for now (abridged)
{
  "service": "c3marley",
  "status": "placeholder",
  "planned": {
    "GET /api/c3marley/parcels?county=harris&owner=": "search parcels by owner name",
    "GET /api/c3marley/parcels/{acct}": "one parcel, score breakdown, second signal, sources",
    "GET /api/c3marley/summary?county=harris": "status totals that tie to the published CSV"
  },
  "published_files": [
    "/data/summary.json",
    "/data/second_signal.json",
    "/data/c3marley_second_signal_harris_v3_8.csv"
  ]
}

Open the Harris ledger.

Every parcel, its score, the rules that fired and the source for each one.