THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Wealthy Italian sailors are finding that their yachts attract unwanted attention from the taxman, reports Nick Squires
As Italy swelters in temperatures of up to 40C, the country's marinas should be packed with bronzed sailors in expensive deck shoes tending to their gleaming yachts.
But Italian boat owners are feeling the heat not just from the sun this summer.
Thousands are weighing anchor and fleeing with their gin palaces to quiet corners of the Mediterranean to escape a tax evasion crackdown – part of efforts by the government of Mario Monti, the prime minister, to tackle Italy's €1.9 trillion public debt.
Six months after the authorities launched a high-profile campaign against suspected tax dodgers in the up-market ski resorts of the Alps and the Dolomites, the battle against evasion has taken to the waves.
Just as tax inspectors targeted the owners of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other top-of-the-range sports cars in their bid to sniff out tax evasion in the mountains, so in the ports and marinas they are going after the owners of luxury yachts.
Uniformed officers of the Guardia di Finanza, or tax police, are performing on-the-spot checks, boarding boats and checking owners' details against their tax records.
In a country where tax evasion is regarded almost as a national sport, they often find that the owners of expensive boats have declared trifling amounts of income, or none at all. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Saturday, July 14, 2012