Lithuanian authorities use Google Street View to search for tax evaders



    Yes, the Lithuanian authorities came up with an interesting way to search for people who built houses / objects who do not have any permits. In addition, the building is being built without permission, that is, the authorities do not know anything about it, the landlord still does not pay the state for the same reason - there are simply no mentioned objects in the databases of the relevant authorities. Well, since it’s not in the database, it’s not in the list of the tax authority. And here the well-known Google Maps service came to the aid of the authorities.

    For several months, officials, just “walking” along the streets of large and not very populated areas, found quite a lot of undocumented real estate (and about 100 homeowners + 30 construction companies that may have evaded taxes have already been identified).

    An example is given of one of the violators, who must now pay about 91 thousand dollars in a fine for an illegally built house. Another pair of offenders declared the land they were selling, however, they “forgot” to mention the house that was on this land and was sold separately. This offense cost the sly 50 thousand dollars.

    Lithuanian tax authorities began using Google Maps and Google Street View to search for intruders around the beginning of the year. The search procedure is simple. The official, as mentioned above, simply “walks” along a virtual street, checking the real estate base.

    As soon as he sees something suspicious, an inspector is sent to the place (already physically), who checks whether the landlord has violated something or not. According to representatives of the tax service, this is a much more effective way of working than taking inspectors time with physical walks along the streets of real settlements. In addition, a “virtual” trip saves not only the time of officials, but also the resources that are usually spent on business trips, transportation costs and other needs.

    Also, officials believe that this way of working does not violate the rights of citizens. Maybe this is so, since lawyers from the Human Rights Monitoring Institute also confirm the point of view of the tax inspectorate.

    I wonder how soon a similar method of detecting illegal real estate will begin to be used in other countries?

    Via phys.org

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