Logistics, the open-and-close co-op fraud to cut costs

"The action of the Guardia di finanza in the sector ofillegal labour outsourcing," General Luigi Vinciguerra, commander of the 3rd Operations Department of the General Command, told the Sole 24 Ore, "is developed following risk analysis, also in synergy with the other institutions in charge of combating irregular labour".

The starting point, he added, emerges 'by analysing companies that display the typical characteristics of so-called "open-and-close VAT-companies", i.e. companies that have a short operational life and, despite having a large number of employees, do not pay taxes and contributions'.

The profile coincides with that of these companies that offer cheap labour. They are cooperatives called reservoirs (they also register as limited liability companies) and are the main ploy to cover the illicit supply of labour.

They are shell companies that 'transport' teams of workers who are then irregularly transferred to logistics companies under false service contracts. They operate in a rapid cycle: they accumulate tax and social security debts, then they are shut down with almost surgical precision and immediately reactivated under a new name and a different front name. The sign changes, but not the substance: the same workers are forced into a perpetual 'transhumance' from one cooperative to another, remaining in fact tied to the same logistics company from which they formally have no rights.

The Gdf has also identified a third actor: the filter company. It inserts itself between cooperatives and logistics companies, shielding direct relations and lengthening the supply chain. The aim: to slow down or divert thechecks.

For the logistics company, in addition to the advantage of offering services at low prices, there is a payback in the form of taxes. Consider that since 2021 the prosecutors of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office alone have recovered some EUR 600 million in evaded taxes.

Investigations of the same kind were also recently carried out by the Guardia di Finanza in Turin and Bolzano. In the capital of Piedmont - where preventive seizures of EUR 26.5 million were triggered last September - the total volume of invoices for legally non-existent transactions exchanged between the various companies amounted to more than EUR 100 million. High numbers were also recorded in the province of Trento, where the number of illicit invoices amounted to more than EUR 80 million and seizures reached EUR 15 million.

In all of these cases under investigation, the same scheme emerged, based on a round of legally non-existent invoices between the various companies (principal or logistics, filter, tank). In this way, the logistics companies would have accrued a VAT credit on the invoices issued by the filter companies for the fictitious services and would have lowered their business income (Ires) by recording as a cost of services what was actually labour costs.

How are labour costs lowered in these tank cooperatives?

The evasion of contributions is the pivot. Then the tricks: a slice of the salary is paid through the travel allowance - tax-free - even when the worker does not move from the warehouse.

Then there is the false part-time: real shifts of ten, twelve hours; four or five hours appear in the pay packet. The rest evaporates: phantom hours, overtime that does not become wages, squeezed salaries. These are not accounting details but the cog that keeps costs down, pays those who work poorly and creates unfair competition that harms those who respect the rules.

The sector is trying to self-regulate, but with difficulty given the proliferation ofinvestigations. Confetra, one of the main associations of logistics companies, last May presented a scheme for tendering contracts - drafted by Pietro Ichino - to offer a tool to prevent distortions and to valorise clean companies.