Prosecution of Vittorio Sgarbi for Tax Evasion Requested by Rome's Prosecutors

The Rome Prosecutor's Office has requested the trial for the former Undersecretary of Culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, for fraudulent evasion of tax payments. Debts that the art critic has with the Revenue Agency amount to a total of about 715,000 euros. The public prosecutors accuse Sgarbi of having acquired a painting in 2020 at an auction, listing his partner as the buyer and with money from a third person, intending to protect the artwork from possible claims by the Tax Office. Sgarbi: "I have resigned. I thank Giorgia Meloni for the attention she has given me." "Inexplicable. It will be motivated by the lawyers through the profound contradiction of a magistrate who thinks that I, who was simultaneously buying artworks for myself, had to use my girlfriend for a painting that instead belonged to her, it was given to her as a gift. It seems legitimate to give things - Sgarbi commented -. We are now in a state so devoid of principles that it is assumed that if one buys a painting, it must necessarily be for a person who wants it. And yet, it can be a gift, and it was a gift. It's something meaningless, totally senseless."