The Treviso financial police, as part of the customs and anti-fraud surveillance activity carried out at the “Antonio Canova” airport in Treviso, have identified 91 air carriers who, in 2023, failed to pay the tax due for flights air taxi, causing damage to the Treasury of 137,500 euros.
The object of investigative attention was a “niche” of air transport, namely non-scheduled flights, carried out with rental company aircraft, with a few dozen seats, usually used for greater comfort and to save time, avoiding delays, queues at boarding and baggage claim.
They are well 1,310 passengers passed through the Treviso airportdistributed over 395 air taxi flights, for which the tax was not paid, which is equal to 100 euros for journeys of less than 1,500 km or 200 euros in the case of longer journeys, and must be paid, for each journey with departure and/or arrival on the national territory, by the individual passenger who uses the transport service directly to the carrier, who at his time is obliged to pay it to the State.
It’s about foreign operatorsbased in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia , Spain, United States of America, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary.
To identifyand the “ghost” passengers were the Fiamme Gialle of Treviso which, after having acquired the handling companies active at the “A. Canova” of Treviso, the declarations filed by the carriers used for the air taxi flights, they cross-referenced the data with the payments made to the State Accounting Office. The airlines that did not pay the tax in order to offer were thus discovered more competitive prices for entrepreneurs and tourists.
In addition to the tax evaded, they will now also be applied fines for approximately 41 thousand eurosequal to 30% of the sums evaded.
The control activity follows a similar one, concluded in the two-year period 2022-2023: following similar controls, the Treviso financiers had, in fact, identified other 162 air carriers which, in the tax period from 2017 to 2022, had caused a shortfall in the State coffers of 267,340 eurosnot paying the tax due to the transit, at the Treviso airport, of another 2,446 passengers, distributed over 718 air taxi flights.
The operation of the Guardia di Finanza of Treviso had the aim of protecting the treasury coffers on the one hand, and on the other the air carriers who regularly pay the taxes due for air taxi flights, thus contributing to re-establishing compliance with the rules of competition in this transport sector.
