Excise Duty Decrees Ter and Quater: updates on digital payments, extensions to the business closure scheme and fuel tax credit

The main changes concern the extension of the deadline for local authorities to sign up from 30 June to 31 July (by this date, the local authority must have published the measure on its website and notified the collection agent) and, at the same time, a revision of the timetable for the tax returns of the taxpayers concerned (the window is now from 16 October to 15 December) and of the deadline for the first or only instalment (according to the proposal, this becomes 31 March instead of 31 January 2027).

As noted in a statement from ANCI, ‘the deadline of 30 June was too close for most local authorities and unworkable for the many municipalities involved in the local elections in May and June’.

Another amendment introduced during the Senate’s consideration of the ‘Accise ter’ decree concerns the clarification of the obligation for sellers of goods or services and for professional practitioners to accept payments using alternative methods to cash. The amendment serves to extend the application to all new electronic payment methods, and therefore essentially includes apps and digital wallets as well.

This alignment measure also covers the penalty for those who do not accept electronic payments: a penalty which, at least from a regulatory perspective, will be set from 30 June 2022 at a fixed amount of 30 euros plus 4 per cent of the value of the declined transaction. An updated framework, therefore, to take account of all the rapidly evolving technological developments.

The tax credit to counter high fuel prices for road haulage is also being extended to passenger buses. However, this extension is being implemented without any increase in funding. The allocation, in fact, is 300 million (an increase from the previous 100 million, introduced by the ‘Excise Duties Quater’ decree, namely Decree-Law 89/2026). As things stand, the subsidy scheme is designed to cover the additional expenditure incurred in each of the months from March to June 2026 compared with the price in February.

The percentage is to be set by an implementing decree issued by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, in consultation with the Ministries of the Economy and the Environment. However, the potential pool of applicants is now expanding, which risks reducing the amount of the benefit for those who apply once the operational rules and procedures are in place.

When the decree was passed by the Senate, it also included the provision introducing the ‘tax shield’ for the special commissioners of Acciaierie d’Italia (formerly Ilva) in relation to the new 100 million loan granted by the State to ensure business continuity pending the sale.

With regard to liability before the Court of Auditors, the provision excludes the notion of gross negligence on the part of the commissioners – specifically in relation to the use of the loan and the facts constituting its legal basis or logical legal consequence – leaving only the case of intentional omissions.