The Revenue Office has publicly identified more than 150 sites across Canberra, mostly residences but also some business addresses, on which the landlords owed at least a year's worth of land tax.

When the office began the campaign last year, a property owners' group called the controversial policy unnecessary and warned that it might breach privacy law.

But Revenue Commissioner Kim Salisbury said about $1.9 million in tax arrears had been recovered from investors so far.

The residents or tenants at the addresses were not in debt: land tax is paid only by the investors who lease properties.

More landlords in Belconnen were deeply in arrears than in any other district. Mr Salisbury named 42 properties in the area, though Gungahlin and the inner south (both of which had 26 properties) were other significant contributors.

Weston Creek (nine) and the inner north (14) were the districts with the fewest indebted properties.

ACT law allows the Revenue Commissioner to name addresses for which rates and land taxes are more than a year in arrears.

If the owners have not cleared the debt a year after the property is named, the government can apply to take it over and sell it.

The government's hardline stance is one of several methods that has helped it recoup an increasing amount of unpaid tax.

The amount of recovered tax debt has leapt in the past three years, from $7.7 million in 2012-13 to $17.4 million last financial year.

The crackdown on unpaid land tax netted the largest increase: recovered arrears rose from $3.6 million to $8.9 million over the same period.

Recovered payroll tax rose from $3.5 million to $7.9 million.

ACT Chief Minister and Treasurer Andrew Barr said the government was committed to doing everything it could to track down individuals and businesses that did not pay their tax.

In recent years, he said, the government had hired more compliance officers – about 20 dedicated staff who co-operate with teams from other state offices and the Australian Taxation Office.

"The 2013-14 budget had an initiative to increase tax compliance activity ... this initiative provided additional staff to the ACT Revenue Office to encourage more tax-compliant behaviour through education and more targeted taxpayer communication, and to undertake tax compliance activities to uphold the integrity of the tax system," Mr Barr said.

"This is resulting in improved compliance with taxation legislation.

"The taxes recovered by the Revenue Office help the government finance important services such as health and education, which benefits everyone in the community."

Mr Barr said last year's budget committed $30 million in capital funding to upgrade the Revenue Office's IT systems.

"Enhanced information systems will allow the ACT Revenue Office to undertake more effective compliance activity by improving data matching, data exchange and data mining functionality."