Dolce & Gabbana off to prison for tax evasion

A Milan court also ordered the pair to

pay a fine of 500,000 euros ($712,111)

to Italy's national tax agency.



Lawyers for Dolce and Gabbana,

whose celebrity clients include

Beyonce and Madonna, immediately

said they would appeal against the

sentences, which have been

suspended in the meantime.



Dolce and Gabbana were accused of

having transferred control of their

brands to a shell company in

Luxembourg in 2004 and 2005 to

avoid paying Italian taxes.



Prosecutors had argued that setting

up the Luxembourg company Gado -

an acronym of the surnames of the

two designers - while the company

was operating out of Italy was a bid

to defraud the state.



In May, they had called for the pair to

be jailed for two years and six

months.

In her closing speech at the trial,

prosecutor Laura Pedio said there

was "rock-solid proof" that the duo

had committed "sophisticated tax

fraud".



She said Gado was "a sort of cloud

with the consistency of gas", while

fellow prosecutor Gaetano Ruta said

it was "an artificial construction, the

aim of which was to get a tax

advantage".

Although Dolce and Gabbana had

originally been accused of tax

evasion of about 1 billion euros, the

court ruled that just 200 million

euros of that sum was relevant.



Four other people, including Dolce's

brother Alfonso, were given

suspended jail sentences.



Investigators completed a probe

into the designers and five other

people in 2010, and the case was

dismissed in April 2011 but reopened

in November last year and went to

trial.



"All that I care about is making

clothes, that's all. Let them do and

say whatever they want," Gabbana

tweeted about the trial in April.



"To be accused of something that's

not true is not a pretty thing but the

heart of the matter is, who cares?

We'll all end up in the ground in the

end."



Founded in 1985, Dolce & Gabbana

employs more than 3,000 people and

has 250 shops in 40 countries around

the world. It doesn't give them the right to evade tax anyways they

make lots of money an sure the tax amount is like spare change.