In Italy, two out of three holiday homes are rented illegally. The data emerges from an extraordinary plan of summer checks carried out by the Guardia di Finanza. Between the beginning of June and 5 August, the Fiamme Gialle carried out 404 checks and irregularities emerged in 256 cases. In all, violations reached 1.680. As for the geographical location, most of them are concentrated in the regions where tourism is more intense: Sardinia, Puglia, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Lazio.
It is from checks of this type that the investigation by the Genoa prosecutor's office into Booking.com was born for a possible multimillion-dollar VAT evasion in the rentals agreed on the digital platform between private individuals without a VAT number.
Furthermore, the operations of the Guardia di Finanza brought to light 6.483 irregular workers, of which 42% were foreigners and 24 were minors.
As regards illegal traders, the Fiamme Gialle found 2.768 unauthorized sellers who had never declared anything to the tax authorities. As many as 90 million counterfeit or dangerous items have been seized.
In particular, 157 interventions were carried out in the gaming sector alone, which revealed 233 irregular slots and 51 clandestine betting points.
