ROME, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Italian police on Thursday said they uncovered a major tax-evasion scam in the central town of Urbino, the latest in a series of tax fraud scandals in the recession-hit country.
The scam, allegedly worth 30 million euros (38 million U.S. dollars), involved 14 companies all working with the same accountant who filed false tax statements. Four of them were reported to have totally evaded value-added tax payments for 1.5 million euros (1.9 million U.S. dollars).
With an estimated black economy worth nearly 20 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP), Italy ranks first in tax evasion in the European Union.
Fighting tax evasion has been repeatedly defined by Prime Minister Mario Monti as a "top priority for increasing Italy's credibility in the world."
"Tax evasion is a serious problem in Italy today for its pervasiveness and size," Marco Miccinesi, a noted lawyer and taxation law professor at the Catholic University of Milan, told Xinhua.
"Despite the increasing effectiveness of controls and greater civic awareness on the importance and relevance of the obligation to pay taxes, evasion still plagues our country, impeding a more equitable distribution of tax burden," he said.
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