Italian elite’s tax details posted on web

Italy's former tax minister, Vincenzo Visco, has caused uproar among the country's rich and powerful – and a good deal of amusement among the lowly-paid - after posting online the income of every Italian citizen for the year 2005, including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Using the Italian National Tax Office's official website, Visco published birth dates, addresses and declared earnings as well as taxes paid (always a sensitive matter in Italy). The politician gave no prior notice, and Italians, eager to exploit the chance to find out how much their neighbours, rivals and celebrities were making, soon crashed the site under a deluge of clicks.

However, before that happened they could have discovered that in 2005 Berlusconi took home £21.9m, Giorgio Armani earned £35.1m, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana made almost £23.5m each and the queen of bling, Donatella Versace (pictured), notched up £4m. "This is an act of transparency, of democracy, similar to what happens elsewhere in the world," said Visco.

Berlusconi has not commented on the intrusion into his private affairs, but one of his supporters, right-wing senator Mario Ferrara, said: "This is a vendetta because he has been voted out of power. Not even George Orwell could have imagined this."

Sadly, the website has now been closed, but not before every kidnapper, robber and gold-digger had a chance to inspect it.