Austria seizes luxury villa from investor Benko
The empire of real estate entrepreneur René Benko is rapidly disintegrating. In the meantime, he himself is increasingly coming under the scrutiny of the tax authorities. Allegedly, the investor has paid too little VAT for years. The tax authorities are therefore seizing his luxury villa in Innsbruck.
Investor René Benko's real estate group Signa has been in crisis for several months. Now the entrepreneur himself is also being targeted by the authorities. According to several media reports, the Austrian government has seized his villa in Innsbruck because the company that owns the villa is said to have paid too little VAT for seven years. As reported by the "Standard", the state treasury is said to be missing twelve million euros as a result. This is according to a publicly accessible lien application.
The company named Schlosshotel Igls Betriebs GmbH largely belongs to the Laura Private Foundation of René Benko and his mother. Benko bought the then Schlosshotel for 11.1 million euros through this company in 2016. He built a private villa with more than 1,000 square meters of living space on the 4,440 square meter property.
The Laura Private Foundation informed the ORF broadcaster that the reports about the villa were "false and misleading". The sales tax had been paid correctly. "The owner of the Schlosshotel Igls GmbH property is an independent real estate entrepreneur and duly paid VAT on the construction costs as part of the construction of the new building and was duly and correctly reimbursed by the Innsbruck tax office as part of the input tax," it also said in a statement.
After strong growth during the low-interest phase, Benko's empire had run into extreme difficulties due to higher interest rates, higher construction costs and higher energy prices. Signa also owns the department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK). It is not yet clear what the announced insolvency filing means for GKK itself.
According to Creditreform, Signa is the largest insolvency in Austria's post-war history. Signa Holding GmbH, whose insolvency proceedings have been running for around a month, is in first place with a debt of five billion euros, according to the APA news agency. It was followed by Signa Prime Selection AG with creditor claims of around 4.5 billion euros.
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René Benko's real estate empire, which includes his luxury villa in Innsbruck, is currently under investigation by the Austrian tax authorities due to allegations of VAT evasion. Despite the Laura Private Foundation's claim that the VAT was paid correctly, the Austrian government has seized the villa, reportedly due to unpaid VAT for seven years amounting to twelve million euros.
Source: www.ntv.de
