The device, tested since last year in nine departments, has detected more than 20,000, according to a report from Public Finances.
The Directorate General of Public Finances announced Monday that its device for detecting undeclared swimming pools by artificial intelligence had made it possible to collect around 10 million euros and that it was going to generalize it to the whole of France.
“The generalization will be done gradually on all the departments in France from September“, she said, confirming information from the Parisian. The device, dubbedInnovative land“, was developed in partnership with the consulting firm Capgemini and the American digital giant Google: it makes it possible to detect constructions or installations on aerial images and to check if they have been declared and are correctly imposed. It has been tested since last year in nine departments (Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Ardèche, Rhône, Haute-Savoie, Morbihan, Maine-et-Loire and Vendée) to detect undeclared swimming pools and found more than 20,000, according to a report from Public Finance. The Bouches-du-Rhône stand out with more than 7,000 pools detected, followed by the Var with more than 3,000 pools. According to the DGFiP report, 94% owners contacted by mail said confirmed the taxable nature of their swimming pool “.
40 million euros in direct tax gains in 2023
“This represents nearly 10 million euros in additional revenue for the municipalities concerned for the year 2022 alone.“, indicates the Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP). Of these 10 million euros, 5.7 million were collected to rectify the lack of taxation in previous years and 4.1 million under the 2022 property tax, which constitutes a resource “persistent» for municipalities according to the DGFiP. Indeed, private swimming pools are taxed via property tax, depending on their size and the coefficient set up by each municipality. “On average, French swimming pools measuring 30 square meters are taxed at 200 euros“says the DGFiP, explaining that the establishment of a swimming pool increases the rental value of the property, serving as a basis for the calculation of the property tax. Above-ground swimming pools are also affected by this tax, if they cannot be dismantled. “If you can take it apart and store it in your garage in the winter, it won’t.“, specifies the general direction of Public finances.
She believes that “gains in local direct taxes should reach nearly 40 million euros in 2023“, once the device is generalized. “These new resources, which will be partly recurrent for local authorities, will ensure the profitability of the project from its second year of deployment.“, she further specifies, while its cost is estimated at 24 million euros over 2021-2023.
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Last September, the CGT Finances Publique union in Bouches-du-Rhône expressed its “worry” vis-à-vis the project, believing that it allowed “to save money» and to avoid recruiting agents in a context of continuous reduction in the number of staff at the DGFiP for several years.
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