FASHION FIX: Cavalli Tax Catastrophe

The master of tacky designer animal print frocks, Roberto Cavalli, is facing tax fraud charges in Italy. Roberto wrote off home renovations as a business expense, spending $2.7 million on renovations to his $18 million mansion at Pian dei Giullari where he lives with his wife and children (I know, he's not gay. That's totally weird). Roberto claims "My house is not my home - it's my workplace, it's my office, it's my imagination and where I have fashion shoots. It's the place where Madonna, Sting, Cindy Crawford and Jennifer Lopez try the clothes that I create. It's where I welcome my most important clients.”...and in HIS IMAGINATION those write-offs were business related dammit!

He could be facing up to 2 years in jail which will not be a good thing for his Spring 2007-Fall 2009 collections. Even though he'd be doing his hard, tax-evading time in Italy, I'm pretty sure those jails aren't going to be a good 'office for his imagination'. I can't see Madonna doing a Grammy dress fitting behind bars.

See, I don't find it hard to believe that he's so disillusioned that he thinks spending $2.7 million to make his house nicer is a necessary business-related expense--since he welcomes Madonna, Sting, Cindy Crawford and Jennifer Lopez to his home to try on clothes. He calls it business, I call it "drinking a little wine and playing a little dress up." Semantics. I guess if Jenny from the Block was coming to my house to try on clothes I'd want to do a little $2.7 million overhaul too. What surprises me about this whole thing is that Roberto Cavalli does his own taxes. I don't even do my own taxes. He lives in an $18 million mansion, runs a fashion house, owns a café in Milan and does his own taxes? Shouldn't he have some calculator-carrying minion to blame this on? [source]