Show me your papers!

Jon - I have to say - After taking small groups to Italy for over 25 years AND, being italian, I learned something today from your post. That has never happened to me or any of my guests and I am very surprised to hear it. One would think the Polizia would focus on the restaurant and it's staff and not scare customers , who are also bringing tourist dollars into the town!! But, thanks for that very interesting post.

Ciao, Greg

The Guardia Di Finanza are very visible in Florence (was your encounter regular police?). You are always supposed to have your "scontrino" with you - even for a coffee at a bar. It is always polite to at least take it when you leave, then the onus is off the shop owner. I have seen them roll up to tiny shops right on the sidewalk so the proprietor can not get out of the doorway! It really is a lot like the IRS but just with a street presence. I don't think all the cliches about Italians not paying taxes are true - it just seems more openly acknowledged - and more vigilantly enforced on a street level that in the U.S.

Well, I'm surprised that Greg, who says he has been taking groups to Italy for years, was not aware of this until now. I have known about it for years and I am just a humble independent tourist.

This was on the latest Steve's program I saw on PBS about Italy.

It will also apply if you buy clothes, bags etc from street markets. A few years ago we noticed that stall holders started handing us receipts and making sure we took hold of them.

I do not think he was regular police. Part of the finance dept that was mentioned earlier was more like it. Later that night we decided to sit at another establishment right up the road to have a Limoncello. Casello's in Monterosso, by the way. Nice place, good food and a great owner and staff. (Sit on the far side of the road from the water for a better view) We spoke to him about the incident and he verified exactly what was going on. I guess it is not unlike alot of cash businesses in the states. The more you can pocket, the less you pay taxes on.

The Guardia di Finanza is a separate police force controlled by the Minister of Economy and Finance. Like the Carabinieri, they are actually part of the Military. Think of it as a combination of IRS, Customs, DEA and the non-protective divisions of the Secret Service. They are involved in preventing tax fraud, smuggling--people, drugs and illegal items, counterfeiting, money laundering, etc. They have about 68,000 agents. If you ever see reports of the Italian police stopping boats of drugs or immigrants off the coast of Italy, it's probably the Guardia di Finanza.

Lesson learned...keep your receipts to make life easier on you. You can always throw them away later.

In our experiences, we've learned that whenever we leave a store, restaurant, grocery, cafe, etc YOU MUST HAVE a receipt! You can be "detained" if you do not have a receipt.

This is to ensure the "operator" gives you a receipt (and charges you for everything & properly), but it is your responsibility to ask for one if they DO NOT give it to you... A few of our friends learned this the hard way - but were only detained and had to return to the grocery store to verify the purchases. Their limited knowledge of Italian certainly compounded the problem.

This is a well documented requirement in Italy. I've been stopped in Florence and in Positano with similar requests.

It astonishes me that someone who says he has taken tour groups there for 25 years would profess to have never heard of it.

We were stopped once and asked to show a receipt from a restaurant we just walked out of in Venice.

It is important to keep in mind that in Italy the police do not need a reason to stop you and ask questions. They can randomly pull over cars and ask for proof of insurance and personal identification. It is not the USA where the police have to have probable cause before stopping people. That said, it's not a big deal and it has caused no distress.

Alas, the big tax debate. It is funny how they dedicate such time and energy into taxing the small business owners through the roof to the point that many have little choice but to close down, yet millionaires like Maradona who have taken their money abroad in order to avoid Italian taxes are just completely forgiven and allowed to repatriate it for a mere 5% penalty....hmmm!

The same thing happened to us in Perugia.
We were stopped by two guys and asked for our receeipt for the dinner we had just eaten.
If I remember, they were not in uniform, but had ID which we could not read in the dark street.
We didn't have one as we had paid cash.
We were asked to go back to the restaurant, and the owner was asked to produce our bill.
They wrote our names on a newspaper they had with them,(!) but didn't ask for passports or where we were staying.
It seemed to be to scare the restaurant owner more than the customers.
Scared the H*** out of my husband though!!!
Always keep your receipts!!!

Thanks for the heads up. Better safe than sorry.