There are all kinds of ways to stave off tax fraud… and technology has landed tax officials yet another weapon in the fight: Google Earth.
I’ll confess that I only ever thought of Google Earth as a fun toy to find images, though I know that there are a lot of practical uses for it. In fact, the scientific world has capitalized on Google Earth to track energy use, global warming patterns, predicted ocean levels and more.
Now, tax officials around the world have decided that this is also a tool that can be useful to them. Using satellite images generated by Google Earth, like the one of City Hall in Philadelphia above, authorities can determine whether the size of properties as reported on tax records are accurate. The amount of detail provided on the images is mind-blowingly specific.
So who’s using it? I thought that only high-dollar areas in wide open places like Montana would take advantage of the technology. I was wrong.
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, they not only use the imaging to determine property size, authorities check the images to determine whether taxpayers improved or expanded their homes in ways that would increase their assessed values.
Other taxing authorities who are using or seeking to use this technology for similar purposes include the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, India. The idea has also been bandied about in US cities like Philadelphia and New Orleans and aggressively pursued in the UK, where it was met with staunch opposition. In the US and the UK, satellite images are being used not so much to determine property size as to confirm additions or improvements to properties, such as decks (especially rooftop decks in the US), expanded porches or new rooms.
This idea of using computer technology to streamline tax assessments and collections is pretty cool, I think. Let’s face it, most governmental tax agencies are not known for their innovative and/or efficient approaches to their tasks. This could revolutionize the assessment and collections process, cutting down on fraud and allowing for more parity in the market.
Currently, there are disparities between assessments in the rural and urban areas, for example, because of density issues. In the UK and Argentina, imaging has been proposed to assist with assessing rural areas, while in the US, imaging for assessment has largely been connected with cities. And herein lies my biggest concern with imaging for tax purposes: consistency. If we develop a system that focuses on one type of property (urban vs. rural) or one neighborhood, the system is neither useful nor fair.
Others have voiced concerns about what other kinds of information might be gleaned from these images, and whether they might be shared with other government agencies. It is, after all, not too much of a stretch to assume that additions or improvements might be matched with licensing agencies to verify permits, or that evidence of multiple residents in one house might be matched with rental records - or possibly immigration and FBI records.
Let’s hope that tax officials can use technology for good - and not for evil - with a consistent, fair and measured approach.
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