Recently we reported that, Italian police raided marinas and found that one third of owners with boats moored there had declared zero or suspiciously low income.
Measures taken by authorities might just be forcing yacht owners into taking drastic measures.
It seems that Superyacht owners are turning to arson to get through austerity with millionaires in hard-hit European countries ditching their luxury yachts in suspicious circumstances.
Jamie Dunkley a Journalist who specialises in Insurance has written “Insurers across the Lloyd’s of London market have complained of a spike in fraudulent claims linked to yachts worth about €2m (£1.6m).”
Nick Smith, a director at loss adjuster Charles Taylor, told the Daily Telegraph his company had dealt with 14 super yacht claims embroiled in “suspicious circumstances” over the past six months.
He told the newspaper, “Yacht insurance fraud is a common problem in any country when bad times arrive,” he said. “It happened to a significant degree in Britain from 2009 as yacht owners lumbered with marine mortgages they could no longer afford tried to get rid of them and make insurance claims.”
According to experts, yacht policies typically value boats at a price fixed when the policy is taken out. This is often higher than the price owners could get in the open market.
In Italy, taxes on boats can reach up to €256,000 a year, Mr Smith added, with owners that fail to pay liable to penalties of up to 300pc.
In Greece, owners face arbitrary tax impositions if the authorities feel their declared income fails to match the size and value of their yachts.
“It has been a problem in Italy for several years but I expect the situation in Greece to escalate before long – and in any other country that faces a sudden burst of austerity,” he added. “It’s not that superyacht owners are any more dishonest than the rest of us, but they are human, and many of them are not nearly as rich as they thought they were.”
Source: The Daily Telegraph
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Avoiding paying tax? Now this is bad for the economy of Italy because as I assume money that are coming from tax collection are used for the improvement of one country, so if one will “tax dodge” what do you think will happen? work visa philippines
I am speaking generally here ok Global, Why bother paying tax, Governments just waste the money anyway, it never gets spent where it should get spent. Lets face it? the biggest percentage of countries are mismanaged by idiots… not many Governments are exempt from corruption, what can you do everyone is consenting blindly anyway. Why not abolish tax then we would only have to abolish death and it would be a better World. Robert Walker