In Lithuania, the Tax Man Cometh Right After the Google Car Passeth

[mahatmakanejeeves]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324125504578511182111677320.html

Assessors Use Web Giant's Street View Photos to Find Signs of Undeclared Wealth
By MARCIN SOBCZYK

VILNIUS, Lithuania—One day last summer, a woman was about to climb into a hammock in the front yard of a suburban house here when a photographer for the Google Inc. Street View service snapped her picture.

The apparently innocuous photograph is now being used as evidence in a tax-evasion case brought by Lithuanian authorities against the undisclosed owners of the home.

Some European countries have been going after Google, complaining that the search giant is invading the privacy of their citizens. But tax inspectors here have turned to the prying eyes of Street View for their own purposes.

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.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Sounds like Greece could've done with doing that.

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