The investment around this alternative asset has caught the attention of older investors as the ATO’s SMSF numbers attest, reassured by the entry into the market of established asset managers such as Blackrock and Fidelity.
Labor failed to get its legislation to tax the earnings on SMSF portfolios exceeding $3 million pass the Senate in the previous Parliament. With the Greens likely to support this Bill, it is now set to become law, and advisers are scrambling to devise strategies for their clients.
Traffic violations in Italy: You can run but you can’t hide
I love Italy, don’t you? I’ve been a few times, over the course of about 30 years, and have enjoyed (to put it mildly) every trip. There’s something about the place and the people that just gets to you. Plenty of others have waxed far more lyrically than I can about Italy and its magic, so let’s leave it there. What I want to tell you about is a cautionary tale that had its origins in a trip to Italy in 2023.
It was a great trip. Our strategy was not to try to see too much, but to spend a week or so in a few locations and really get a good “feel” for the culture and environment. It included larger, well-known cities and smaller, lesser-known towns.
Our favourite in the latter category was Vieste, a small town in the province of Foggia on the Adriatic coast. We spent a perfect week there in a small boutique hotel right in the historic centre near the bay.
But this is not the focus of this tale. You see, to travel around Italy we decided to hire a car, in this case a little Fiat Panda. It was great, and we criss-crossed the country at our ease and pleasure, guided by Google maps. And so, we come to Bologna, where we’d arranged to meet another couple and enjoy the sights and food of this famous city. I was especially interested to visit the University of Bologna, the oldest in the world (it just pipped Oxford).
Our hotel, chosen for its proximity to the historic centre, was tricky to find in a city where the streets are narrow and confusing. After a couple of false turns, we finally made it and took the advice of staff on the best place to park the car overnight (underground, a few hundred metres away). It was a great boutique hotel within easy walking distance of Bologna’s famous towers and the Piazza Maggiore, where you’ll find Neptune’s Fountain, with the impressive trident that inspired the Maserati logo.
Although we mostly walked around, we took the hire car out for a couple of day trips to other places, such as Parma, where again the use of Google maps made navigation possible, if not always easy.
And so, after about six fabulous weeks (including a side trip to amazing Malta), we returned to Australia. Two months later, it started. Simultaneously with an email from Hertz, money was taken from my credit card, ostensibly to cover administrative costs. These were due to a traffic infringement, a copy of which was attached to the email. It was in Italian, sent from the local police in Bologna, who somewhat amusingly are located at Via Enzo Ferrari, 42 (astute readers will appreciate the significance of that number).
As informed, my offence was “CIRCOLAVA SU CORSIA RISERVATA AI MEZZI PUBBLICI DI TRASPORTO CON DIREZIONE PERIFERIA CON VEICOLO NON AUTORIZZATO”, which translates as “DRIVING ON A LANE RESERVED FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT HEADING TO THE SUBURBS WITH AN UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLE”. A few days later, there was another one, with a similar offence. And a week or so later, another one. All were the result of blindly trusting Google maps. Each fine was for nearly €80 ($AU145).
Somewhat panicked but equally peeved, I immediately cancelled my credit card to stop any further deductions. I figured that this brilliant move would be the end of it, and I could simply ignore any further correspondence.
Not so. Late last year a letter arrived from Italy, containing three notifications of traffic infringements. The specific infringements were two counts of “Circulating on a lane reserved for other vehicles” and “Driving although it was not allowed”. The total fine now reached €609.84 ($AU1,069). Having refused to pay so far, I decided to hold my course and ignore the demands. After all, how could they chase me halfway across the world?
Turns out they could. A couple of weeks ago I received three demand notices from an Australian collection agency, requesting payment and threatening legal action if I didn’t comply. Now it was looking serious – the total fine was $2,107.82. You can probably imagine my feelings at this stage.
My online investigation of my legal situation produced mixed results, so my last resort was to ring the provided number of my designated case manager to plead my case. If nothing else, surely I’d be able to have the fine reduced a little.
The pleasant woman who answered my call listened patiently to my tale of woe and agreed to investigate what minimum payment would suffice. Though I’d anticipated something in the region of a 15 per cent discount, the revised total was $1,173.80, nearly $1,000 less. Breathing a sigh of relief that I hadn’t paid the initial figure, I paid.
My advice? Pay your overseas fines – they’ll track you down.
