Giuseppe Costantini and Gian Piero Giliberti are tax inspectors in Italy. Well, they probably won’t be for much longer as they’ve been caught allegedly asking taxpayers for bribes in return for reducing tax payments.
The going rate for the services of these two dodgy gentlemen according to Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera was €7,000 for each €100,000 in reduced tax liability.
Alleged extortion artists Messrs Costantini and Giliberti may well face charges of ‘concussione‘ which is the crime public officials in Italy commit when they ask for cash in return for illicit services such as slicing through pesky red tape or offering illicit tax reductions.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
The rub is that the restauranteur who reported the tricky tax inspectors to Italy’s financial police, the Guardia di Finanza, didn’t even owe Italy’s taxman the taxes the dodgy crew of two claimed he did. Apparently, these official con artists had come up with their own ingenious system for working out how much tax was likely to be payable. The bribes the tax inspectors requested were then based on fictitious tax liability calculations.
One hopes Italy’s authorities will take a very close look at the assets of these two dodgy tax inspectors who may well have nice shiny new Ferraris tucked away in garages and 30 metre pleasure boats moored in ports somewhere in Italy.
Giuseppe Costantini and Gian Piero Giliberti easily earn themselves Italy Chronicles’ title of Italian Rogues of the Week.
If you run a business in Italy and find yourself with a request for payments from official officials, you should perhaps check the requests are genuine.
