fbpx
Log in

Login to your account

Username *
Password *
Remember Me

Create an account

Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
Name *
Username *
Password *
Verify password *
Email *
Verify email *
Captcha *

Drones hunt property cheats in Spain

dronegolfTax officials in Spain have discovered nearly 1.7 million houses in the country on which inadequate taxes have been paid after an extensive drone and satellite operation.

The drones were able to record improvements and extensions to houses and simple checks determined if these had been declared to the authorities.

In some cases, the sweep found whole houses not registered with the local town hall.

Spain’s tax office estimates that such fraud existed in 9% of the houses registered on the country’s municipal registers, or padrónes.

The unprecedented search, begun in 2014, looked into 4,340 municipalities. It is believed to have resulted in €1.3 billion in new revenue from Land Value Tax.

Two of Spain’s poorest regions, Andalusia and Galicia, were found to have the most violations, with 373,000 properties and 213,000 properties respectively.

Castilla y León followed with 164,000 undertaxed houses.

“For every euro spent on the project, the tax office recuperated 16 euros,” said a tax office spokesperson. The newspaper El Mundo calculated the project costs to be in the region of €80 million.

The operation is not yet complete. Authorities plan to send the drones to a further 2,000 towns and municipalities.

Pin It

Comments  

+2 #2 John Cowan 2016-07-26 22:59
Tax evasion seems to be endemic in countries like Spain and Portugal (not to mention Greece). Bad communication between departments, "couldn't care less attitude"; over-complicated, antiquated, paper-based procedures, inadequate laws protecting the end consumer; the cost and timescale of pursuing an issue through the courts, etc. etc. What is being done to fix the problems? Anything? In the meantime the government loses millions of not billions in tax revenue, to the cost of everytax payer and the reputation of the country. Maybe it will take a revolution to change things. It's good that Spain has had this drone based 'sweep' to find unregistered properties or extensions (and Portugal should do the same), but it doesn't solve the root cause of the problem.
+5 #1 Jeff Harris 2016-07-26 20:18
What is identically a Portuguese hurdle for outsiders and foreigners to navigate or run from is that so often the Municipal has been informed of building alterations and / or given some other planning permission but has not told the regional authorities. Alternately an out and out fraudster makes the changes or even the ENTIRE build and has nobbled the Municipal planning officers long enough for the basic build to take place. Then it freezes.

Everyone involved - lawyers, architects, builders and council officers fully aware of what was going on yet intentionally defrauding the outsider or foreigner - if only by passively standing by and letting it happen. Yet the bad guys using the weight of the State to do their frauds. Safe in the knowledge that Portugal is not yet sufficiently evolved to punish them. And this is allegedly Europe in 2016 not 1916 !

You must be a registered user to make comments.
Please register here to post your comments.