Valentino Rossi has not only had happy moments in his career as a motorcycle rider. Of course, we especially remember from his career the nine world titles, the 115 victories in the three categories and the 235 podiums which made him a legend of the paddock. But who remembers the 60 million that the tax authorities demanded from him at the beginning of this century? The Doctor still remembers this episode, and it's quite painful...
A bad memory that Valentino Rossi shared with journalist Graham Bensinger in an interview of which you have the video below. We were then between 2007 and 2008, a delta which interested the Italian tax authorities who investigated Vale's accounts in depth, until discovering that it had failed to declare more than 60 million dollars taxes since the year 2000. A time when Red settled legally in London, precisely for tax reasons…
When the news reached the public square, the dear Italian press that he thought was an ally put him on the stake and was ready to set the fire by promising him a prison future. We could even read that Red would no longer be able to return to Italy, except to pay the modest sum of 164 millions of euros. Ultimately, the pilot paid a fine of 35 millions of euros. To the tax administration of his country in order to join him and thus find his loved ones…
« The press put a lot of pressure on me. I found myself in a bad situation, I had made mistakes“, remembers Vale who had entrusted his entire tax organization to his former representative. The latter was responsible for choosing London to reduce the payment of taxes in Italy, creating a network of companies that Red had to be dismantled years later to be reinstalled in Tavullia : " I was aware that this could happen, that's why A year or two before, I tried to sort everything out and I pushed very hard to try to sort it out because I wanted to go back to Italy. I was living in London, which is a great place, but I didn't feel comfortable there, it wasn't home."
Valentino Rossi: “ I was stuck in the system, I was screwed«
It was at this time, in 2006 and 2007, that Valentino realized that returning to Italy would cause him a problem with his country's Treasury: “ I tried to go back to Italy, but I was stuck in the system, I was screwed. My old manager and the people who worked for me spun a web and I was in there unable to move. In the end I paid and was able to come back, and from there, a new life has begun for me ».
He remembers " one day I arrived home and I had a lot of reporters standing there with the cameras and everything. I walked by and looked at them like, “What’s going on?” ”, It was clear that it was something bad. At that moment the news reached me, the numbers were crazy. But what made me suffer the most was the press, they destroyed me with something that wasn't true either, it wasn't $163 million, I never had that amount of money ».
The lesson, however, was: “ I felt much better, also because at that moment I cut the cord with all my old organization which had ultimately caused me all these problems. What we learn is that when we work, friendship is one thing and work is another. You have to explain to people that it's over, that it's not right, that they should do it another way, and then you become stronger, because it's not easy to do. When you go through such a difficult time, if you survive, you become stronger. After that I learned to follow my instinct, and most of the time in a good way " finished Valentino Rossi, now retired from MotoGP.
