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Ghost companies, non-existent properties, beneficiaries unknown to the tax authorities, and often recipients of citizen’s income. And two benefits in our sights: the ecobonus and the facade bonus. These are some of the ingredients of the investigation activity conducted by the financiers of the Provincial Command of Savona which have recently led the investigating judge, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Savona, to issue a preventive seizure decree for the amount of one billion euro, to be carried out on the tax drawer of the 311 economic subjects involved, holders of tax credits in ten regions throughout Italy.
Coordination with Revenue
The investigations were conducted, as always happens in these cases, in coordination with the officials of the Revenue Agency. The investigations led to the discovery that the tax credits were completely non-existent, because they were obtained through the use of false invoices for work to be carried out or in progress on properties owned by individuals resident in the Savona area. A classic scheme for this type of offence.
Ghost companies and total tax evaders
Thus, the investigation expanded and led to the discovery of how the scam carried out by companies operating in the province had been replicated on a national scale by other companies in the sector. These were real ghost companies, unknown to the tax authorities or with inconsistent business volumes, «without properties to which it was possible to associate the building works aimed at obtaining the benefit in question as well as active/passive invoices aimed at proving the actual execution of the works”. In essence, therefore, operations existed only on paper.
Convicts and recipients of citizen’s income
Looking at the subjects involved, some were recipients of citizenship income, others “burdened by specific criminal records, which also include crimes in the public spending sector”, still others had generated and accepted credits with subjects with whom they had a connection of kinship (husband/wife, mother/son). Also in this case these are typical intersections in this type of operations.
Chain transfers
Finally, some of the companies that had generated fictitious credits had in turn purchased credits, “as in the case of a person who had purchased credits as a natural person from a company he represented”. All intersections necessary to make the reconstruction of the chain of passages more complex. Some of the subjects involved had already carried out the undue compensation of the bonuses, «achieving illicit and appreciable tax advantages», while another had purchased blocks of fictitious credits with a nominal value of hundreds of millions of euros «for a negligible fee actually paid”.
