Imu, Tari and fines, scrapping for all municipal revenues

For the municipalities, there is no possibility of deciding on the amnesty of tax debts entrusted to the Agenzia delle Entrate Riscossione, linking up with national amnesty number five. But for the rest, local administrations have full autonomy in deciding on any facilitated definitions to be granted to their citizens for Imu, Tari, or even service tariffs such as nursery school or school canteen fees: provided that they keep the capital share intact, thus restricting partial or total discounts to interest and penalties, and do not jeopardise the financial sustainability of the operation; sustainability that will have to be certified by the auditors, better if aided by a sort of municipal technical report with which the authority estimates the potential rate of adhesion, the possible collections and the impact on the budget.

Giving instructions on the scrapping of local taxes is Ifel, the Institute for Finance and Local Economy of the ANCI, which yesterday published the operational note for local administrations accompanied by the scheme-type regulation to be adopted to start the dance of the amnesty. The resolution with the regulation is in fact the indispensable premise for the new facilitated definition introduced by the last budget law, together with the five scrapping of treasury taxes, which, however, will continue to travel in parallel, without communicating vessels with the possible local choices.
One of the most frequent questions arising from the new amnesties of the manoeuvre concerned the possibility for local authorities to apply the mechanisms of the national facilitated definition, as happened in previous editions. The Ifel, evidently after a technical discussion with the financial administration, as is the practice in these cases, points out that in light of the rules written in the budget law "the municipal regulations cannot provide for obligations to be borne by the Revenue Collection Agency", so that "the limit of the exclusion of any municipal decision with reference to the loads entrusted" to the national agent remains insurmountable.

The offers of mayors and municipal councils to their debtors, consequently, will have to focus on Imu, Tari, Canone unico patrimoniale, urbanisation charges, school fees, nursery school fees, and traffic fines when these revenues are managed and collected autonomously, or entrusted to concessionaires registered in the Collection Register. On these items, mayors will be able to reduce or reduce to zero interest and penalties, without being able to affect the capital share, which will therefore continue to be demanded in full.
With these parameters, Ifel technicians explain, "the legislation allows for the definition of almost all municipal own revenues, including road traffic sanctions, since these are public law property revenues. In the case of fines, in addition to interest, the scissors may also lighten or cancel the sums accrued by way of collection charges.
It is important to emphasise that the budget law also allows for the facilitated definition to be used to settle the omitted (or deficient) payment of municipal revenues that have not yet been assessed by the authority, saving the taxpayer the interest and penalties that would be due in any case, also due to the mechanism of the 'active repentance'. This option, the note suggests, 'certainly appears effective' for Tari, but proves more slippery when looking at Imu. There are two problems here: the first is related to the tax system, which on industrial and commercial buildings, hotels and other 'category D' properties contemplates a fixed fee to be paid to the state, which is intangible by any municipal amnesty (unless, that is, it has already been subject to municipal assessment). Since this is revenue yet to be assessed, and here comes the second possible stumbling block, it is not possible to predetermine the amount due.

On the other hand, the doubts concern the Tari (road user charge), the one applied in an increasing number of municipalities to accurately measure the bill based on the amount of waste produced. Ifel's instructions suggest that this revenue may also fall within the scope of local amnesties, but explicitly ask the Government to clarify the issue with a regulatory or interpretative intervention. On the other hand, the definition of pending litigations is weighed down by the failure to suspend the time limits for appeals: a shortcoming that will still occupy the Government, which will be called upon to resolve the issue with a new regulation, probably in the legislative decree on fiscal federalism.