Stanton James

If you paid sales tax when you bought ur last Dolce & Gabbana # then you apparently paid too much because these poor dudes are being charged (again) with tax evasion. Italian officials could fine the boy $1.12 billion. The po po say Dolce and Gabbana did not pay enough for the sale of the Dolce & Gabbana and D&G brands to their Luxembourg-based holding company Gado Srl in 2004. D & G say they only got $447.8 million in that deal, and declared the right amount but the coppers say they calculated the market value of the transaction to be $1.37 billion — way more than it actually was, according to Dolce and Gabbana — and therefore assume the designers owe more taxes than they actually paid. It is the second giant tax mess for the Dolce boys related to Gado. Police also think the company was set up in Luxembourg for the purpose of avoiding Italian taxes. Dolce and Gabbana say they're prepared to vigorously defend themselves, which should be great fun. It only took Roberto Cavalli six years to clear up his tax evasion charges in Italy.

Dolce and Gabbana Deny Tax Evasion [WWD]