The debut prospectus

2025 rates come into play for the balance

Without submission to the Finances by 14 October, the basic measures are triggered

by Luigi Lovecchio

8 June 2025

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Key points

December appointment
Three-conditional validity
A limit to differentiation
Simplification goal
Non-transmission
How to pay the deposit

3' min read

This year sees the debut of the obligation to compile the ministerial prospectus of the Imu rates, within which to place the municipal resolutions adopting the measures of the local tax. This has a twofold effect. On the one hand, if the municipality resolves on a type of rate not contemplated in the prospectus, it cannot be applied. On the other hand, should the local authority forget to send the prospectus to the Finances by the peremptory deadline of 14 October 2025, not the previous year's rates but the statutory base tax measures will be applicable.

Appointment in December

It follows that taxpayers will have every interest in paying the advance by 16 June on the basis of the previous year's rates, pending verification, at the time of the balance due on 16 December, of the actual validity of the resolutions adopted for 2025.

The tax rules provide that the advance payment is to be paid by applying the previous year's rates. This is without prejudice to the taxpayer's option to use the current year's rates in order to make the payment of the due amount in a single instalment (Article 1, paragraph 762, Law 160/2019).

Three-conditional validity

As of this year, however, local rate resolutions are valid on condition that:

1. have been assumed by the budget deadline (28 February 2025);

2. are included in the new rate schedule prepared by the Department of Finance;

3. the prospectus is to be submitted to the Mef by 14 October in order to be published on the Mef website by 28 October.

A limit to differentiation

The prospectus in turn has a twofold function. The first is to limit the 'imagination' of authorities in differentiating tax measures. In fact, if the municipality does not find, within the ministerial forms, the cases it intends to decide on, it cannot be adopted.

Simplification Objective

At the same time, it is also intended to make it easier to understand the cases to which the different local rates refer, without necessarily having to read the full text of the resolution, which is often not easy to decipher. The ministerial form is in fact easily readable, as it is composed of predetermined descriptions.

The non-transmission

As mentioned earlier, however, the consequences of not submitting the prospectus by the deadline, even in the presence of timely resolved rates, are far from negligible. In fact, in this hypothesis, the base rates of the municipal tax (Imu) will apply, as an exception to the rule of survival of the previous year's measures.

In practice, this means that, for example, the tax rate for second homes will be 0.86%, as will the rate for houses leased on an agreed rental basis, without prejudice to the entitlement to the 25% reduction established by law. Normally, local rates are mostly 'squeezed' towards the maximum of 1.06% and sometimes up to 1.14% (former Tasi surcharge). For leases with an agreed rent, on the other hand, a reduced rate is often deliberated.

The rule of retaining the measures decided for the previous year will only become applicable again after the first year of transmission of the prospectus.

How to pay the deposit

It is therefore understandable why, at the time of the down payment, it is not convenient to risk payment in a lump sum, even if it is assumed that the taxpayer is in possession of a timely resolution.

If the municipality fails to fill out the prospectus correctly and submit it to the Department of Finance by 14 October, the resolution will be considered ineffective, with the consequences outlined above.