Ferraris Out of Fashion?

Tommaso Ebhardtof Bloomberg reports, Ferraris Out of Fashion in Italy as Police Nab Tax Evaders:

Police fanned out across Milan in late January halting more than 350 vehicles, mostly luxury SUVs and Porsches.

At checkpoints, including one adjacent to the fashionable Corso Como, the police got the driver’s license and registration, which they passed on to the national tax agency. The tax authorities will use the data to check if the cars’ owners had declared enough income -- and of course paid the right amount of income taxes -- to justify their lifestyles.

It was at least the fifth raid targeting wealthy Italians since a Dec. 30 sweep at the posh Cortina d’Ampezzo ski resort, where 251 high-end cars were stopped, including Ferrari and Lamborghini supercars, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 13 issue. Rome, Portofino on the Italian Riviera and Florence have also been targeted.

“I’ve been stopped three times in the last few weeks by authorities because I’m driving a luxury SUV,” says Andrea, a Range Rover owner and entrepreneur in Italy’s wealthy northeast. “It seems like the McCarthy era in America. You’re guilty by suspicion.”

The 43-year-old, who declined to give his last name for fear of attracting the attention of Italy’s tax agency, now plans to sell the SUV he bought last May. He expects to get at most 40,000 euros ($52,400) for a car that cost him more than 100,000 euros. “Dealers are full of luxury cars. No one wants to buy them now,” the businessman said.

Luxury Sweep

Italian authorities are applying to luxury-car owners the same logic they displayed more than a year ago, when tax agents started tracking down the owners of yachts berthed in Italy’s harbors to see if they were current on their tax payments.

In the raid in Cortina D’Ampezzo, tax agents found that 42 luxury car owners had declared income of less than 30,000 euros for 2010 and 2009. Another 19 luxury cars were owned by businesses which posted a loss in the previous year. The sweep in Florence discovered a builder with no tax record who was driving a Mercedes with his wife who was receiving social assistance. Tax officials also found a German owner of a BMW X5 SUV with no declared income, according to the website of the tax agency’s Florence office.

This is serious stuff for the government, which estimates that tax evasion costs the country about 120 billion euros a year in lost revenue.

“The ownership of a luxury car highlights a level of spending and a standard of living that are often not reconcilable with the income declared by the owner,” said Carmelo Piancaldini, a manager in the inspections unit of Agenzia delle Entrate, Italy’s tax authority. “If one is transparent with the tax agency and buys a luxury car, he doesn’t have to worry.”

Record Costs

The collection effort is part of Prime Minister Mario Monti’s plan to curb record borrowing costs on Italy’s 1.9 trillion-euro debt and avoid following Greece, Portugal and Ireland which all had to seek bailouts.

Monti has also raised taxes on luxury goods, including expensive cars. The owner of a 316,000-euro Lamborghini Aventador, for instance, will now have to pay about 8,400 euros a year in taxes, an increase of 6,600 euros.

While tax authorities reject being the cause for a slump in car sales, the measures are having an impact. Marco Santucci, general manager of Tata Motors’ Jaguar brand in Italy, said orders for high-end cars “decreased substantially” in the final months of 2011, dragged down by the taxes. Sales are shifting towards cheaper versions with smaller engines, he said.

Slumping Demand

Demand for vehicles from the likes of Fiat SpA (F)’s Ferrari and Maserati brands and Volkswagen AG (VOW3)’s Lamborghini slumped 53 percent in January, with just 66 supercars sold, according to Anfia, the association of Italian carmakers. The new taxes and high-profile dragnets have also sent exotic-car prices down 20 percent, according to dealer association Federauto.

“Extra taxes and fiscal raids are hurting the demand for supercars and killing the second-hand market,” says Filippo Pavan Bernacchi, head of Federauto.

The slump in luxury sales adds pressure on the Italian auto market as the economy teeters on the brink of recession. Sales may fall to the lowest level since 1985 this year on the weight of the budget-tightening measures, according to Fiat Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne.

Luxury Tax

Still, for Ferrari, which earns higher profit margins than any other Fiat unit, it’s not the end of the world. There’s plenty of demand outside Italy for the company’s sports cars.

“Italy isn’t a concern for Ferrari as it sells its cars abroad,” Marchionne said last month in Detroit. Relying on Italy would be a problem, because “demand is not there -- austerity is impacting everywhere in the country.”

Monti’s new luxury vehicle tax targets owners of cars whose engines have more than 251 horsepower. The tax may raise about 165 million euros this year, according to Unrae, Italy’s association of foreign carmakers.

“It’s hard to imagine that any other European country having luxury car producers contributing significantly to employment would have introduced a tax” on supercars, says Maserati CEO Harald Wester.

The government also increased duties on fuel. All told, the extra levies will cost Italian drivers 5.1 billion euros by the end of 2012, Unrae estimates.

I'm not worried about Ferrari, plenty of hedge fund managers outside Italy collecting 2 & 20 for mediocre results are lining up to buy one to see how big their penis grows behind the wheel of a luxury sports car.

Italian and Greek tax evaders are going low profile. In Greece, my cousin was telling me you can buy a fairly new second hand Porsche Cayenne for less than 15,000 euros. They can't unload them fast enough but there aren't any buyers. They want to avoid paying taxes on luxury cars (registration/ fuel) and avoid attracting unwanted attention.

Anyone who's ever visited Greece, Italy and Spain knows there is a huge underground economy. In these countries, tax evasion is a national sport. In Greece some of the biggest tax evaders are crooked tax collectors and corrupt politicians. Nobody is going after them but we all know they built their villas on the Greek islands through ill-gotten gains that they never paid a dime in taxes on. And German luxury car makers can't be too pleased about austerity and the crackdown on tax evasion. It's going to take a bite out of their profit margins.

Below, police fanned out across Milan in late January halting more than 350 vehicles, mostly luxury SUVs and Porsches, in a bid to catch tax evaders. Bloomberg Television's Caroline Hyde reports.