Announcing its intention to bring forward measures to encourage Italians to move money from the 'black' economy into the fiscal light, the Italian treasury issued a startling estimate that more than $500bn of money has left the country via 'capital flight'.
That's ten times the annual cash profits the Russian government makes from its commodity exports in a good year, and whose rapid departure for Switzerland, Jersey and points west led to accusations of 'unheard of plundering of the nations's patrimony' etc etc.
The simple truth is that people with money will put it where it won't be taxed or stolen by rapacious governments, and in that respect Italy has nothing to learn from Russia. Also, there's very little governments can do to stop such behaviour, except the one thing they hate most, which is to reduce taxes and create a friendly environment for investment. But that doesn't stop them trying to have their tax cake and eat their citizens' money at the same time.
The Italian treasury says it will prepare an amnesty for the repatriation of money illegally spirited out of the country, adding to a broad package of measures produced by the treasury minister, Giulio Tremonti, to boost economic activity without widening the already worrying deficit.
"All the measures are designed to promote growth and to create a more friendly relationship between taxpayers and the authorities, thereby drawing a line with the past," said the treasury.
The plan is likely to include fiscal incentives for re-investment of the well-travelled money, as well as exemption from administrative penalties normally imposed on illegal transfers.
Officials said anyone seeking to take advantage of the amnesty would have to provide evidence that the money had been legitimately earned before it illegally left the country and that anyone returning funds suspected of money-laundering would be investigated.
Other measures in Mr Tremonti's package include tax breaks for investment, with Italian companies being offered reduced tax rates on profits invested in excess of a five-year average investment level.
In Brussels, EU officials said the amnesty might have to be assessed under the terms of the European Union's money laundering directive. "There are different ways to stop money laundering, through penal solutions or this sort of amnesty," an official said. "Our directive tends towards a repressive strategy, so if a member state adopted a different approach, we would want to make sure the two strategies were compatible."
That will take months, if not years, and the Italian government wants to have its rules in place now, to take effect before the euro displaces the lira. What will happen to the returned money if the EU says it was illegitimately recaptured? Will it be confiscated by the great nanny-in-the-sky? De-monetized? Taxed?
Brussels' idiotic remarks simply make it even more certain that any Italian with sense will keep his money just where it is - in dollars in the Cayman Islands, probably.
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