It seems that an awful lot of wealthy Italians have been playing fast and loose with that country's tax system over the years, and not paying their dues. The Telegraph reports:
Wealthy but worried Italians are selling off their Porsches, Ferraris and other luxury cars at a record rate to avoid the scrutiny of tax inspectors.
. . .
Owning a high-powered BMW or Audi has become an unwelcome sign of conspicuous wealth ever since a much-publicised crack down by Italy’s tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, on the chic ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo at Christmas.
Tax inspectors traced the owners of 133 Lamborghinis, Ferraris, SUVs and other top-end cars that they found parked in the streets of the resort, a playground for the wealthy in the Dolomites.
They found that 42 of the owners - nearly a third - had declared incomes of less than €22,000 [about US $29,000] a year. A further 16 claimed to be earning less than €50,000 [about US $66,000] a year.
Police in Milan, Rome and other cities have carried out similar checks, taking down drivers’ licenses and number plates and passing them onto tax authorities, who check whether the owners’ declared incomes are sufficient to support their extravagant lifestyles.
In Florence, tax police stopped a brand new Mercedes and found that it was driven by a builder who declared no tax returns at all and whose wife was on welfare payments.
. . .
Some owners are so scared of running into spot checks by the tax police that they are asking dealers to come and collect their cars at home.
“One client was scared of driving 10 kilometres from his house to here,” Lorenzo Schiatti, who owns a Jaguar and Land Rover dealership in Reggio Emilia, northern Italy, told Corriere della Sera newspaper. “He was afraid that he’d be stopped by a Guardia di Finanza checkpoint.”
“We don’t have definitive numbers because it is difficult to quantify but it looks like thousands of cars are leaving Italy each month,” said Sirio Tardella, the director of Unrae, an association of foreign car manufacturers.
. . .
... a recent government study estimated that Italy’s black economy, which includes evasion of income tax and VAT, amounts to €275bn [about US $363 billion] a year, or 17.5pc of GDP.
There's more at the link.
$363 billion a year??? That's a heck of a 'black' or 'shadow' economy! Of course, such reports are nothing new in Europe: we saw a while back how many Greeks have been guilty of similar behavior - including where motor vehicles are concerned!
Peter
There are loopholes, and they/we find them. They were included by someone, and until they are plugged, be it in Italy, Greece, Germany, England, France or even HERE, pricey autos will turn heads.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Friedman at Stratfor made a video which addresses a very basic issue re the present European financial crisis, and although it does not specifically address fancy cars, it does address the cultural attitudes of these countries and why they are not going to solve their financial problems.
They can have Guardia di Finanza checkpoints up the whazzoo, and in the end, some moneys might be recovered, but the basic problem won't be solved; and next year there will be more checkpoints. And drivers will have figured a way to get more "free" wheels. And their crises will remain.
I wonder how much in our taxes this country is kicking into the Euro financial problem.