• Using aerial data from Google and software, the French tax authorities have detected nearly 20,000 undeclared swimming pools in nine departments.

  • The gain in terms of taxation already amounts to 10 million euros according to Bercy, while this experiment will be gradually generalized.

  • This appearance of artificial intelligence and satellite data for the processing of cadastres could introduce a small revolution.

Although Google is regularly suspected of tax malice - and has accepted;

for example a payment of nearly one billion euros to the French State in 2019 - its tools also know how to make themselves useful to the tax authorities.

Thanks to the study of the aerial views of the American company, the French administration is preparing to recover ten million euros from French taxpayers who have failed to declare their swimming pool, reports

Le Parisien

according to an upcoming report from the Directorate General of Public Finances (Dgfip).

The Bouches-du-Rhône in pole

Conducted in nine departments (Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Alpes-Maritimes, Morbihan, Vendée, Maine-et-Loire, Rhône, Ardèche, Haute-Savoie) this experiment carried out with the consulting firm specializing in digital Capgemini has based on the development of software capable of massive processing of aerial views to compare them with cadastres.

A kind of artificial intelligence at the service of tax officials which led to the "discovery" of 20,356 unregistered swimming pools after a few months of adjustments in order to avoid, for example, assimilating handicapped places, blue background, to swimming pools.

Among the pilot departments, the department of Bouches-du-Rhône is the champion of undeclared swimming pools, with 7,244 irregular pools, followed by Var with 3,809 future regularizations,

according to data collected by the Dgfip.

Satisfied with the results, Bercy announced that this technique will be gradually extended to all departments in France from September and generate a tax gain of 40 million euros by 2023.

A satisfaction that Philippe Laget, CGT public finance delegate from Bouches-du-Rhône, intends to moderate.

“We are not opposed to artificial intelligence and supports such as aerial views provided that they are used to go into the field”, explains the trade unionist who fears in the long term an abolition of the body of surveyors.

“The management report indicates that 94% of taxpayers who received a letter confirmed the taxable nature of their swimming pools, but the letters were sent during the summer, and the complaints are starting to come in,” he tempers.

He also points to a relative “tax injustice”, with “a reference model established in the 1970s”.

Because according to the law, when a swimming pool is buried, semi-buried,

fixed or ground or placed on a concrete slab and with an area greater than 10m², it is taxable.

“Dated legislation that does not take into account the evolution of the market, such as kit swimming pools”, considers Philippe Laget.

"Less durable, they should be taxed less," concludes the tax official.

Still a few holes in the racket

Also, the system seems less efficient for some municipalities.

In the east of Marseille, for example, "the software had only detected 30% of the swimming pools built and was able to see a person dispatched to the field", raises Philippe Laget.

The fault, one imagines, with more wooded environments and more intimate swimming pools.

Finally, the software being based on the characteristic blue and green colors of swimming pools, it will probably not be long before you see yellow coatings appear.

France has nearly 3.2 million private swimming pools, half of which are buried, according to a 2021 study commissioned by the Federation of Swimming Pool Professionals.

A booming market: 86,000 in-ground pools were built in 2021, compared to 70,000 in 2020 and 55,000 in 2019. An expansion that has been accompanied by relative democratization, since in 2021, 24.7% of in-ground pool owners are employees, workers or farmers, an increase of 10 points in four years.

In this sociography of buried swimming pools, executives and business leaders account for 41.6% followed by retirees (33.7%).

Eventually, aerial data could also replace cadastral data on the ground.

With consequences on the living areas considered by the taxes, as long as the roofs have overhangs.

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  • Company

  • Swimming pool

  • Taxes

  • Local taxes

  • Artificial intelligence