From amnesty to reasoned controls, OK for the tax decree

The new edition of the special tax amnesty, accompanied by the increased rigour of tax audits in companies, has begun. These are the two chapters that characterise the parliamentary passage of the tax decree whose conversion law received the final go-ahead from the Senate on Tuesday 29 July with a show of hands vote.

In this way, the special amnesty will become operative, which will allow taxpayers who apply the synthetic reliability indexes and who adhere to the arrangement with creditors, to rectify the 2025-2026 years by paying the substitute tax on income and related additional taxes and on IRAP. In practice, a re-edition of the regime similar to the one envisaged for the two-year period 2024-2025. The novelty is that access to the amnesty will be possible from 1 January 2026 to 15 March 2026, since only in this period will it be possible to make the payments necessary to block the effect of possible assessments on the years that can be reclaimed, which are those from 2019 to 2023. The payment of the substitute tax must be made either in one lump sum between 1 January and 15 March 2026 or in a maximum of 10 monthly instalments (plus interest) from 15 March 2026.

The second novelty, as mentioned, is intended to put stakes on tax audits in companies. An amendment to the Statute of the Taxpayer stipulates that in the authorisation acts and minutes drawn up by the Revenue and Finance Guard verifiers 'the circumstances and conditions that justified the access must be expressly and adequately indicated'. With this intervention, Parliament aims to respond to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which condemned Italy for its poorly-guaranteed rules on tax inspections in companies. Among the requests was the obligation to inform the taxpayer of the radius of action of the verification at the business premises before it is initiated and the right to be assisted by a professional, also allowing effective legal protection to contest the verification at the premises that exceeds the perimeter, without then having to wait for the time required to issue the assessment notice. The new season of company accesses only concerns the future, however, because the indication and motivation supporting access will apply to authorisation acts and minutes drawn up after the conversion law comes into force, while the acts and measures adopted remain valid and the effects produced and the relationships that arose on the basis of the provisions in force prior to the new course are unaffected.

Then comes the goodbye to the 10% Irpef surtax on variable compensation (bonuses and/or stock options) paid to managers/executives and directors of industrial holding companies in excess of one times fixed remuneration. A change that will apply as early as the 2025 tax year, and thus for withholding taxes already paid in the first months of the year will entail the need to make a recovery by making a reconciliation at the first useful payment deadline (see Il Sole 24 Ore of 22 July).

Among the changes introduced in the conversion there is also one aimed at reducing pending tax litigation because it will be possible to consider the dispute on the files subject to the 'rottamazione quater' as extinct even after the payment of the first or single instalment without having to wait for the completion of the payment plan until the end of November 2027. The rule was contained in the initial drafts of the decree and then did not make it into the version published in the 'Official Gazette', but now 'returns' even after the request made by the Csm among the solutions to be adopted to dispose of the backlog, with particular attention to the Supreme Court, and help achieve the Pnrr objectives.