Watch: John Oliver Reveals an Insidious Kind of Corruption Most People Have Never Heard Of

They are called special districts, and they are a special way of picking taxpayers' pockets.

By Alexandra Rosenmann / AlterNet

Special districts are special because they can receive little oversight and can be very easy to create. Sometimes the only people voting for them are two people in the middle of nowhere.

"One of the most interesting ways how special districts are different from any form of government is that they can be created seemingly out of thin air," said "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver. "For instance, in Conroe, Texas, a company was looking to create a new neighborhood on undeveloped land. They wanted to form a special district which could issue bonds. Now to do this, the law required a vote, but remember, no one lived there yet. So what did they do? So guess what they did?"