Taxman seeks assets as cash feud splits Italy’s Agnelli family

Italian summer gossip switched from the sex life of Silvio Berlusconi to the troubles of Italy’s wealthiest and most powerful dynasty yesterday after allegations that €2 billion of the inheritance left by Gianni Agnelli, the former chairman of Fiat, had been hidden in Switzerland and not declared. Attilio Befera, director of the Agenzia delle Entrate, the Italian tax office, said that inspectors were seeking clarity on “the existence of assets abroad that have not been declared”. He said the agency was “not just persecuting billionaires” but investigating the tax affairs of 170,000 Italians who used foreign tax havens. Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Mr Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, claimed that the alleged hidden Agnelli assets included art works, equities and properties in the United States as well as cash deposits. Reports said that the Agnelli investigation was triggered by information that had come to light during a two-year legal battle between Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, Agnelli’s only surviving child, and Marella Caracciolo Agnelli, his widow, over the fortune. News of the tax investigation, given prominent treatment in Italian newspapers yesterday, was broken by TG5, which provides the news on one of the television channels owned by Mr Berlusconi. The prosecutor’s office in Turin said there was “at present” no evidence that a crime had been committed and it was not conducting its own investigation. Continue ...

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