Google Maps Used To Find Tax Cheats

phantomfive writes "Some countries are worried about the privacy implications of Google Maps, but Lithuania is using them to find tax cheats. 'After Google's car-borne cameras were driven through the Vilnius area last year, the tax men in this small Baltic nation got busy. They have spent months combing through footage looking for unreported taxable wealth. ... Two recent cases netted $130,000 in taxes and penalties after investigators found houses photographed by Google that weren't on official maps. ... "We were very impressed," said Modestas Kaseliauskas, head of the State Tax Authority. "We realized that we could do more with less and in shorter time."' The people of Lithuania don't seem to mind. 'Authorities have been aided by the local populace. "We received even more support than we expected," said Mr. Kaseliauskas.'"

Comments

But of course they do!

[war4peace]

The people of Lithuania don't seem to mind. 'Authorities have been aided by the local populace. "We received even more support than we expected," said Mr. Kaseliauskas.'

It's only normal and expected. I would help authorities catch the assholes who don't pay their taxes. Unfortunately, where I live authorities don't even try catching them, mainly because they're all the same.

Re:But of course they do!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from 'fairness' in itself(which probably is a motivator, you can even piss off some of the smarter flavors of monkeys by presenting them with 'unfair' situations), I suspect that perfectly sensible self-interest is at work:

When the tax man comes, the poor are least able to hide(they have no lawyers, no accountants, and they tend to spend close to what they earn, so even if they are being paid in cash under the table, they still show up in sales taxes); but they also have fuck all money to collect.

The wealthy(especially so in countries with high levels of economic inequality) are where the assets are, often a commanding percentage of them; but they also have by far the most sophisticated measures for avoiding taxation.

It's the intermediate cases, who might actually have enough money to even be worth the trouble of collecting; but have neither the money nor the influence to engage in effective tax evasion, who end up footing the bill(since going after people poorer than them is nearly pointless, there just isn't any wealth there, and going after people richer than them has traditionally been difficult). Why wouldn't they resent tax evasion?

Re:Why wouldn't the people support them?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

... or maybe they have a sense that taxes are a necessary evil. One might feel schadenfreude at the violators due to the former ... but also sympathy due to the latter.

I think that the surprising thing is that anybody would think that a necessary evil badly and unevenly enforced would possibly be better than a necessary evil efficiently and fairly enforced.

There is, arguably, nothing more corrosive to the rule of law than flagrantly spotty and selective enforcement of it.

Re:Why wouldn't the people support them?

[h4rr4r]

Yeah, it seems nearly all Americans think of themselves merely as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Which leads to stupidity like people voting for politicians that promise to cut the taxes of the rich and end the programs that the voter needs to eat.

Re:Why wouldn't the people support them?

[niado]

I'll take "stupid" people voting for liberty over "lazy" people voting for a living any day.

You put the scare quotes on the wrong words.

I'll take stupid people voting for "liberty" over lazy people voting for "a living" any day.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Here's one person who doesn't support them

[dkleinsc]

That's stupid for 2 reasons:
1. I'll bet you good money you believe in more than 1% of what the government is doing: 1% of the US federal budget is $38 billion, which just about covers either federal law enforcement (including prosecutions) or transportation infrastructure (including air travel, highways, rail, and cargo shipping), but not both. Cut out law enforcement and you might as well not have a legal system. Cut out transportation and all that stuff you currently see showing up in your local Walmart won't get there. I highly doubt you want to live in that kind of country.

2. If Paul evades taxes successfully, the government will simply try to collect revenue from someone else. If they can't, they will borrow the money to function. If they can't borrow the money, they will inflate the currency.

Basically, your argument, which I'm guessing you think is libertarian, is actually anarchist - a coercive authority with no money can't do anything at all. So on that basis, I'd recommend that you move to Somalia, Afghanistan, or one of the other areas of the world that has no functioning government whatsoever, and thus no taxes.

Re:Here's one person who doesn't support them

[AuMatar]

We tried that. People were dieing from unsafe food products- meat that was slaughtered in unsanitary conditions, alcohol that has gasoline and other non-edible fillers added in, and crooks who just plain lied about what was in their product. Read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle sometime.

Foo and shelter for the poor? Non-government efforts have been attempted since pre-Roman times. They all failed miserably- people would literally die of starvation in major cities. Now we have government efforts. They're not perfect, but they work- the starvation in western civilizations is damn near zero, the remainder being child abuse cases.

Defense- please tell me how you're going to self organize for defense against an opponent that can kill you by tens of thousands from a continent away, and pay for this effort? Oh, and please tell me how you'll do this without creating an organization that will just take power.

Roads? Well since we never prevented anyone from building them, the US must have a had a sweet set of private roads for cross country travel before the government stepped in and fucked them up. Oh wait, it was the exact opposite- the government was needed to build and finance the interstate system. In fact, there's been no time in the history of the world where an extensive network of private roads was made adequate to the nation's transportation needs.

Step the fuck out of fantasyville and into the real world.

Re:Why wouldn't the people support them?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You are delusional. Government is not the major threat to your liberty now. It is the corporations and rich guys who threaten your liberty. The rich will use any means to threaten your liberty. Right now they buy politicians, corrupt the government, run astro turf organizations, hire shills and liars to get you. Among all these instruments they use, democratic government is the only thing that you can use at some point to get the control back, get the country back. At some point enough people will pay enough attention to clean up the mess.

And the rich know it too. So they use all the resources they have to create a pathological irrational antipathy to all government and persuade you to reduce taxes and reduce it ability to enforce laws. Just remember this, if you actually manage to starve the government out of existence, there is nothing to stop you from being enslaved by the rich once again.

If you are not rich, the democracy is the only weapon you have, the only way to achieve liberty. Starving the beast is a snake oil sold by self serving rich people and the shills bought by them.

Re:Why wouldn't the people support them?

[Velex]

What the hell does gay marriage have to do with it?

Seriously. I should just keep my yap shut and just mod you flamebait, but I'll bite.

I am sick of dipshits like you asking me to constantly choose between voting for smaller government and the political values I believe in and being a second-class person or else voting for big nanny state government but at least knowing that if my significant other is in the hospital, I'll be able to see him.

I mean, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you dipshits? You're telling me that I can either have small government, which I assume means ending the meaningless war on drugs and terror that are turning us into a police state, or I can get married to the person I love?

No, I'll tell you what the hell you mean by small government. You want a government that tells me what I can and cannot put in my body, from substances that have been used throughout human history safely and are beginning to be recognized as legitimately medically useful to my boyfriend's body parts. You want a government with TSA checkpoints at every airport, railroad station, and probably at every freeway interchange if you had your way. You want "small government" that will dump billions upon billions of dollars into bombing the shit out of third world countries and propping up dictators. You want a border patrol with the right to stop and search anyone, anywhere, anytime solely based on the color of their skin.

Hell, what the hell do I care?

I used to be a Libertarian. I still have a Libertarian keychain I bought four years ago. Let's face it. The Libertarian party isn't going to get into power or be in a position to do jack shit until hell freezes over.

I guess you've convinced me. If voting Democrat will continue legitimizing homosexuality and transgender identities and if voting Democrat might get the gears rolling to respect the people of states who have voted to end marijuana prohibition, I guess I'll vote Democrat.

Because there's sure as hell no way that the Republicans represent anything I even remotely care about. Either way, social security will remain a joke. "Obamacare" (federalized Romneycare) will continue to be a handout to medical "insurance" companies with little hope of real reform. We're going to continue being Team America World Police. The imaginary property crowd will continue gaining clout in Washington, in Redmond, and in Silicon Valley until I'll probably need to register my general-purpose computer without a DRM locked bootloader just the same as a firearm. We're going to continue throwing orders of magnitude more money at pointless wars and "cyber" warfare and "omg the terrirists" than we do at exploring our own solar system and basic scientific research.

But hell. Why the hell not. At least with the Democrats, I might be able to get married, maybe adopt some day, and buy the only substance I've ever used that seems to do jack shit for my anxiety attacks over the counter at any corner Walgreens. (Sorry, I need something more effective than a placebo, so anti-depressants, 5-HTP, St. John's wort, you name it, they're all out. If anything, everything I just listed makes it worse.)

Having Libertarians in power would be great. No more gay marriage and no more straight marriage either! Get the government out of the damned marriage business and separate the legal implications from the religious issues. It's not going to happen, though. The more shit I hear out of Republicans and right-wing nuts like you just makes me wonder whether or not I should vote Democrat for the first time in my life in 2014 and again in '16. (Might be amusing to have another Clinton in the white house, and Billy might just be able to pull off being the first first husband evar.)