Computer system on trail of tax dodgers
Print Edition
Italians are on edge this week after tax police began deploying a new computer system that compares declared revenues with expenditures to crack down on tax cheats.
The “redditometro” (revenue-meter) will attempt to recover at least a small fraction of the estimated 120 billion euros (US$161 billion) in taxes dodged each year.
It will initially analyze the books over the past four years of a sample 35,000 households, including looking at mortgages, cars and even food purchases.
If it identifies a discrepancy of more than 20 percent between intakes and outgoings, the redditometro triggers a tax inspection.
Italy has one of Europe’s biggest grey economies and highest levels of cash transactions, making tax evasion a constant problem despite repeated crackdowns.
The new system is made up of dozens of computers that analyze databases and “can uncover the big tax evaders and the fake poor,” Marco di Capua, the deputy director of the tax agency, told reporters.
The redditometro implemented on Monday is a new version of a similar system first introduced in 2010 by then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was himself convicted of tax fraud earlier this month.
It has been criticized by some for not going far enough and by others, mainly right-wing politicians, as a massive interference by the state.
Matteo Salvini, a deputy leader of the opposition Northern League party, described it as the type of system “used by communist and fascist regimes.”
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