It is an additional tool in the panoply of the tax authorities in the fight against fraud. From this month of October, the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP) is launching the experimentation of its “Innovative Land” project in nine departments: Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Ardèche, Rhône, Haute -Savoie, Vendée, Maine-et-Loire and Morbihan. "This consists of using innovative artificial intelligence and big data technologies in order to guarantee better reliability of the bases of local direct taxation from aerial shots of the National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN ) ”, Explains the DGFiP.
Clearly, these free access images will be analyzed and compared with land and tax data to identify any non-declaration of a veranda, a house extension or even a swimming pool.
An underground or above-ground basin that cannot be moved increases the rental value of the property and therefore the housing tax (for those who still pay it) and the property tax.
The swimming pool must also be declared within 90 days of the completion of its construction.
Google as a subcontractor
But more than the method, what created the controversy at the time of the revelation of the project by the Chained Duck, it is the use of Google. In fact, the American giant, which has had some disputes with the French tax authorities, is only Capgemini's subcontractor. "Only the aerial photographs of the IGN are processed in the Google cloud, to the exclusion of all other land and tax data," says the DGFiP. The outlines of the built land and swimming pools, with their geographical coordinates, are then transmitted and processed within the DGFiP. "The company Google therefore does not intervene at any time in the operations of crossing with topographic and fiscal data", says the DGFiP.
Thanks to this project, Bercy can nurture great hopes for new recipes.
In 2019, the DGFiP carried out an experiment of the same type using software from the IT company Accenture in Charente-Maritime, Drôme and Alpes-Maritimes where, in this department alone, around 3,000 undeclared swimming pools had been found in a few weeks.
The owners of undeclared pools are warned.
Especially since "the DGFiP intends to process the entire metropolitan territory over the year 2022", she tells us.
