Real estate investor - Tax claims: Villa of Signa founder Benko seized
The Austrian tax authorities have seized a luxury villa belonging to bankrupt real estate investor René Benko. As can be seen from the land register, the tax office in Vienna has registered a lien of around 12 million euros for the property in the Innsbruck district of Igls, as the authorities believe that VAT of this amount is outstanding.
The villa belongs to a company, which in turn is owned by a Benko family foundation. The foundation informed the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the taxes had been refunded by the tax office in the past and were now being wrongly claimed. Austrian media had previously reported on the seizure.
However, the Ministry of Finance stated that such refunded taxes become outstanding tax debts again if the tax office comes to the conclusion that a property is not used for commercial purposes. The villa is considered one of Benko's residences. The lien, which is now recorded in the land register in a similar way to a bank mortgage, serves to secure the outstanding claims. This does not necessarily mean that the villa will be auctioned off by the state.
The most important parts of the Signa real estate and retail group built up by Benko are insolvent. Last week, the luxury real estate unit Signa Prime (KaDeWE, Elbtower) and the real estate development company Signa Development filed for insolvency. Benko's network of companies, which also includes the department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, has faltered due to rising interest rates, construction costs and energy prices.
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Source: www.stern.de
