Foreign-flagged, Italian-owned: 100 boats discovered in Sardinia that had never been declared to the tax authorities.

One hundred boats, although traceable to Italian residents, operated in Italian waters under foreign flags and were not declared to the Italian tax authorities , with a total value of 48 million euros.

The discovery was made by the Air and Naval Operations Unit of the Guardia di Finanza in Cagliari, which completed Operation "Red Jack," one of the largest economic and financial enforcement operations conducted in the recreational boating sector. The fines could reach up to €23 million, depending on the purchase or market value of the undeclared goods.

The ROAN investigation began in 2025 when, following a routine police check at sea, a comprehensive reconnaissance of Sardinian ports was launched. The Guardia di Finanza (Italian Finance Police) was targeting the phenomenon of "flagging out," which is "a strategy often used by Italian individuals to circumvent the national tax system by registering yachts and pleasure boats abroad," the Guardia di Finanza explains. "This practice, aimed at reducing management and insurance costs, is frequently exploited to evade transparency obligations towards the Treasury. The core of the operation was verifying compliance with tax monitoring regulations, which require Italian residents to promptly declare, in the "RW" section of their tax return, the possession of movable property registered abroad."

In essence, failure to report assets registered in a foreign country on a tax return constitutes a violation aimed at concealing the taxpayer's true tax capacity from the tax authorities, "and is therefore subject to penalties under current legislation proportional to the value of the asset itself." The investigation conducted by the Guardia di Finanza Naval Station in Cagliari "has assumed extensive proportions, also in relation to the tax residence of the various owners of the pleasure craft," the Guardia di Finanza adds. The meticulous reconstruction "has allowed us to trace the individuals who failed to file their tax returns, distributed throughout the country, through targeted action by numerous units of the Corps."

(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)