Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Tax evader's collection confiscated

The Italian tax office is examining the purchase of any luxury vehicle (though a Plus 4 is not really a luxury vehicle) to see if you have a declared income that would allow such a purchase. This is fairly easy for them as they were able to use information they already had. They have the record of IVA (VAT) which was paid on the purchase of the vehicle, and with that they have your tax number. Probably a simple program runs a cross reference. Since I actually had no source of income declared in Italy and they knew I had paid tax and insurance, and did not have finance, an automatic letter was probably generated.

In the end I had to pay a little over €1,000 euro because, under international tax agreements you can't be double taxed for the same thing. In fact I have since realised that there is another tax that I pay in Australia that could be offset against the Italian tax. This would reduce my Italian tax liability to a very small sum. It is a system that is reasonably fair but incredibly complex.

They still manage to collect quite a bit of tax from me. IVA (VAT) is 22% and levied on almost everything.

PS. I should mention that the overall tax burden in Italy is very high. I think it is something like the 6th for individuals and the 2nd highest in Europe for companies. Hard to know if this is to compensate for the massive tax evasion or causes it. It is probably a circular argument. High evasion, a top heavy bureaucracy, and corruption at all levels place the real burden on the honest tax payer and the wage earners who have little opportunity to avoid tax.