Taxes and contributions

Twenty-seventh in the list is la verifica fiscale, and the noun is safe enough. La verifica is a check or an inspection, and in a school it is the class test, la verifica di matematica, which « verification » never is. The trap is the verb, and it is an expensive one. Verificare behaves as expected: verificare i conti is to check the accounts. Verificarsi does not. The reflexive has left the idea of checking altogether and means to happen, to come about. Si è verificato un errore says an error occurred; si sono verificati due guasti says two breakdowns happened; le previsioni si sono verificate says the forecasts came true. A reader who hears « has been verified » in any of those has turned an event into an audit, and in an inspection report that is the difference between a fact and a finding. The bridge between the two senses is old enough — what turns out true is what has come to pass — but English crossed it only in the passive and kept « verify » transitive, with somebody always doing the verifying.