A property tax bill of roughly $2,300 eventually cost Geraldine Tyler far more than the amount she owed. The 94-year-old Minnesota woman lost her Minneapolis condominium after unpaid taxes, interest and penalties accumulated over several years. According to the US Supreme Court , Hennepin County sold the property for $40,000 and kept the money left after settling Tyler's tax debt. In 2023, the dispute reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that the government could not keep the surplus value of her home. Tyler's case became an important test of what happens when a government takes property to recover an unpaid tax bill. The dispute was not over whether the county could collect the taxes, but whether it could keep more than Tyler owed.
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