TRENT. The province recently introduced legislation that extends the tourist accommodation identification code to all accommodation structures. From now on, leisure and holiday accommodation will have to affix the plaque outside the building, the obligation also applies to holiday farms. Also who carries out brokerage activities real estate and subjects that manage telematic portals and that advertise, promote or market accommodation facilities and accommodation for tourist use must publish the tourist identification code provincial on the tools used.
The province intends to place a brake on the phenomenon of so-called “ghost” tourist accommodation. As predicted by a survey of the Dolomites, only in the High Guard they would be around 300 “ghost” tourist apartments which are rented without however being registered in the appropriate registers. At least that is what emerges from US software than Apt Garda Dolomites used to map the annual trend of the real estate market.
This form of escape, in addition to disproportionately increase rental prices for residents, it could be generalized. Cavalese Financial Police recently identified 140 people that in order not to pay the Imis they had tmoved their residence to the mountain, even if in reality they only used the house for short periods of vacation or worse they rented it out to tourists. All this generated a shortfall of more than 550 thousand euros.
At Alto Garda however, by crossing the data collected with the software and those present on the various platforms such as Air B&B, the Apt obtained the surnames and first names of the tenants, but also the addresses, the number of rooms and even the prices of tourist apartments in the municipalities of Riva del Garda, Arco, Nago-Torbole, Tenno, Ledro, Dro and Drena. As already mentioned, there are more than 1,700 accommodations occupied by tourists, approximately 300 more than the Province (from January 2021) they regularly received the Cipat code. On the other hand, there would be about eighty of those whose Apt could not find the registration data (obligatory like the Cipat code) in the provincial register Dtu.
Inconsistencies could be the index of strong tax evasion, including non-payment of tourist tax. The latter is an issue that should be of particular concern to the various administrations given that the tourist tax, at least in part, returns to the communal coffers so there should be every interest in knowing if someone is not respecting the rules. To give an example, according to the calculations of the adviser of the Democratic Party Alessio Zanoni only the municipality of Riva (every year) would miss about 91,000 euros. They could also configure themselves construction abuse if certain parts had been reconverted without the necessary authorizations.
Now Provincial Councilor Alex Marini of the 5 Star Movement returned to the subject asking the Province to clarify. Not only that, because in a previous question on the same subject (again presented by Marini), the councilor for tourism Roberto Failoni had said that the hosting with a Cipat code (registration early 2021) they were about 11 thousand. “Some municipalities – said Failoni – have already started to verify the consistency of data relating to housing that is advertised, promoted or marketed in their territories on platforms such as ‘Airbnb’, ‘Reservation’, ‘Immediately’ and others, with the data entered in the provincial information platform”. However, the Commissioner had specified, the checks would have taken a long time.
“Even the president of Asat Battaiola – recalls Marini – spoke on the subject stating that there are still few people who use the Cipat code and that most of those who rent apartments on online platforms do so without having any formal economic activity and this causes a distortion of the market and a increase in prices for residents and for those who have to travel to tourist resorts for professional reasons”.
At this point, Marini asks for the results of the checks carried out by the municipalities and the local police: “It would also be useful to know the updated data on the number of apartments for tourist use identified with the provincial tourist identification code”. The M5 adviser, however, also asks if an investigation was ever carried out after the revelations of The Dolomites regarding divergent interpretations of Cipat data by Asat and Garda Apt.
