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French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

theguardian.com

21–30 of 174 posts

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#21

Should be trivial to spot by just looking at their water bill, no?

Much much more trivial to look at a map and see a big blue pool than try to parse water bill differences. Having had a pool, there isn't an obvious pattern as to when i had to fill it up, etc.

Low hanging fruit are the ones that aren't covered.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#22
post #10
post #2

legitimately the shittiest, most boring, and most unimaginatively dystopian use for AI I have ever seen.

Why? Taxes is what sends children to school, pays for hospitals and funds the infrastructure everyone uses. People love to hear about AI breakthroughs that could transform education or health, why should they not be happy about this? I have many doubts about the actual technical solution, but I wouldn't discard the work because it's for taxation purpose.

From my understanding they paid CapGemini €24M for this project in order to net €10M in taxes.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#24
post #16

"AI" Imagine being charged 24 million euros ( https://www.01net.com/actualites/piscines-non-declarees-la-t... ) by Capgemini, known for having fucked up every single public -private partnership in France so they can just run OpenCV on satellite pictures, while being paid for a THIRTY PERCENT ERROR RATE

Scheme to be extended across the country after trial in nine departments led to extra €10m in tax receipts So far it cost 2.5 times what it made. But tbh i don't think the 30% error rate is relevant. How many photos did it analyze and how many did it select for human review? Unless ... google being involved ... there was no human review.

It was ran in the nine departments where there's the biggest concentration and likelihood of pools. Additionally, these 10m in receipts include fines for not declaring the pools. The actual yearly returns are much lower. Looking for swimming pools in the Creuse is not going to bring in a lot of cash.

The DGFiP is hit or miss with these projects, and they rarely hit well.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#25
post #22
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Taxes is what sends children to school, pays for hospitals and funds the infrastructure everyone uses. People love to hear about AI breakthroughs that could transform education or health, why should they not be happy about this? I have many doubts about the actual technical solution, but I wouldn't discard the work because it's for taxation purpose.

From my understanding they paid CapGemini €24M for this project in order to net €10M in taxes.

Most of that will be fixed costs. It won't cost nearly so much the next time.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#26
I m not sure if the idea of going after pools is a good one though. Is the water shortages really that big that people are not allowed to even have blow-up tubs anymore?

Pools are good for cooling down in the summer. Is it better if they use electricity and A/C instead?

The worst thing is that other countries are copying this anti-pool thing because it's populist .

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#27
post #10
post #2

legitimately the shittiest, most boring, and most unimaginatively dystopian use for AI I have ever seen.

Why? Taxes is what sends children to school, pays for hospitals and funds the infrastructure everyone uses. People love to hear about AI breakthroughs that could transform education or health, why should they not be happy about this? I have many doubts about the actual technical solution, but I wouldn't discard the work because it's for taxation purpose.

Taxes are pissed away in France in gigantic useless bureaucracies, useless projects and vote-buying redistribution, to the point that core state functions (police/justice, army, education or healthcare system) are paradoxically starved of funds and dysfunctional. Sadly the only way to curb this spending incontinence seems to starve the state of revenues.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#28
post #25
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding they paid CapGemini €24M for this project in order to net €10M in taxes.

Most of that will be fixed costs. It won't cost nearly so much the next time.

...when will the next 20.000 swimming pools be done?

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#29
post #26

I m not sure if the idea of going after pools is a good one though. Is the water shortages really that big that people are not allowed to even have blow-up tubs anymore? Pools are good for cooling down in the summer. Is it better if they use electricity and A/C instead? The worst thing is that other countries are copying this anti-pool thing because it's populist .

Water restrictions were common last summer over europe. True last year was particularly torrid and following a very dry winter. But this year seems likely to follow.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#30
post #26

I m not sure if the idea of going after pools is a good one though. Is the water shortages really that big that people are not allowed to even have blow-up tubs anymore? Pools are good for cooling down in the summer. Is it better if they use electricity and A/C instead? The worst thing is that other countries are copying this anti-pool thing because it's populist .

Blow up tubs are not targeted by this, because they're not taxable. Pools only get taxed if they're dug in the ground (fully or partly), and are more than 10 square meters.

It's not even going after pools in particular, it's just that pools raise the property tax. you're supposed to ask your city if you can build that pool, and your taxes will grow in consequence. Undeclared, no taxes.

And yes, filling up pools is banned in most of the country right now because we're going through a year long drought.

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