2007 was an annus horribilis for Valentino Rossi, not only did the former World Champion get his butt kicked by Casey Stoner, but the Italian tax man was after him and smeared his name across the news for days for tax evasion (last year it was Rocco Siffredi’s turn) that was calculated in the amount of €200 million (including fines and interest rates).
In 2008 Rossi made peace with the tax office and paid up €35 million and was to pay an astronomical €1.8 million to the Mainardi-Tasini accountancy firm that handled the transaction, but refused to pony up the money believing that they didn’t do all the work that they billed him for and decided to take them to court.
Apparently he is contesting the fact that his previous accounting firm Uckmar did all the preliminary and consultancy work for which he payed €1 million for (they had asked for 2) and that Mainardi-Tasini can’t bill for the same work and has asked the court to decided what amount he should actually pay for. And at the same time is also suing them for abandoning him in 2008 while they were working on his 2007 tax bill that was turned over at the last minute to another firm and that his [Rossi] public image is being further damaged over this question. Rossi will be called to court on May 24th (the Judge and lawyers checked the MotoGP calendar to see if there were any races that weekend) but the Judge Nitri who is ruling over the case said that even if Rossi was busy racing he would have to be present and not even the President of Italy could be excused from his court.
Tax evasion is pandemic in Italy and calculated to be around €350 billion and 18% of the GNP and where Italians are second lowest paid workers in Europe (only Portugal is worse) and the average paycheck is around 19.000 euros a year (that’s before taxes) and only 1% of tax payers declare more than 100,000 euros and only 0.07% more than 300.000 euros.
source : ilrestodelcarlino.it
