Using Google Earth to Find Tax Cheats

Fortune, Greek Government Uses Google Maps to Find Tax Cheats:

When you do a Google Maps or Google Earth fly over of residential neighborhoods, it is pretty easy to spot who has a pool and who doesn't.  In fact, if you look closely, you can even see people enjoying themselves by their pools.  This has been the case pretty much since Google bought Keyhole Technologies (the product that would become Google Earth) in 2004.

Fast forward six years, and the Greek government is proud to announce that they've discovered that you can see people who have pools, and Villas and other stuff that they've been lying about on their taxes for years.  All using Google Maps' satellite view.

They use satellite pictures by Google Earth to locate country villas, swimming pools and properties. And these tactics have revealed that the suburbs didn't have 324 swimming pools, as was reported, but rather 16,974.

Update:  As Mary O'Keeffe (Union College) notes, this practice is moving to the U.S. I previously blogged the annual IRS Research Conference in June 2010, which included this paper and presentation:

Inspectors or Google Earth? Optimal Fiscal Policies Under Uncertain Detection of Evaders, by Martin Besfamille & Pablo Olmos (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Argentina)

• DomainGang, IRS & Google Earth –– Now It’s the Time to Order that Cloaking Device
• Fox News, Google Earth Used To Find Unlicensed Pools
• TechCrunch, Google Earth Used To Fine People With Pools, Again
• Wall Street Journal, Google Earth Used to Bust Illegal Pools on Long Island