Budget Law 2026

UCITS, write-downs and tax 'floor': lack of clarification on the new limit

Constraints on deductibility with doubts about the starting date and valuation criteria The misalignment between statutory and fiscal values, in contrast with the reform, returns

by Marco Piazza

25 March 2026

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Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Almost three months after the entry into force of the amendments made by Law 199/2025 (Budget 2026), the operational knots on the calculation of the floor limiting the deductibility of write-downs of Oicr (mutual funds), held in the business year, are still open. The rule - introduced by the article 1, paragraph 130 of the law - intervenes on articles 94 and 101 of the Income Tax Act, but without clarifying how the new minimum value is to be applied in practice.

The issue directly concerns mutual funds: since they are assimilated to 'serial or mass' securities (interpellation 956-347/2018), they are included in the perimeter of the tightening provided for by the Budget Law.

The new standard

According to the new wording of Article 94 (4) (dealing securities) and Article 110 (2) (dealing securities), write-downs are only permitted up to a minimum value (floor), determined as follows:

-per securities traded on regulated markets or multilateral trading facilities, up to the arithmetic mean of the prices of the last six months. If the tax value falls below this average, the excess is not deductible;

-per other securities, the limit is calculated by applying to the fiscally recognised value any decrease deduced from the overall performance of the electronic bond market (Mot) over the last six months. Also in this case, any excess write-down is not deductible.

The novelty affects in particular entities other than financial intermediaries, with different effects depending on whether or not they adopt the IAS/IFRS principles.

Non-AS subjects

The floor applies both to securities held as current assets and to those held as fixed assets. For investment securities it operates in the presence of an impairment loss; for dealing securities it operates in any case.

Subjects Ias

the floor does not apply to funds held for trading, by virtue of Article 94(4a). Instead, it applies to funds recognised as fixed assets and measured at fair value through profit or loss.

Main criticalities

The tax novelty limiting the deductibility of write-downs of CIUs has some critical points. The two main ones are these:

1) For listed securities, the obligation to calculate the average half-yearly quotation reintroduces a misalignment between statutory and tax values (which had been conveniently eliminated with the 2003 Tremonti reform) and appears to be in conflict with the guiding criteria of the current delegation of authority for tax reform, in particular with the article 9, paragraph 1, letter c) of Law 111/2023;

2) there is no agreed method for determining the six-monthly performance of the Mot for unlisted securities; moreover, this parameter, which is linked to the performance of the bond market, is inadequate to represent the performance of mutual funds that may invest in assets other than bonds (shares, loans, real estate, commodities, etc.).

Doubts about effective date

The effective date of the rule is also unclear. It entered into force on 1 January 2026, without a rule expressly linking it to a tax period. According to Article 3(2) of the Taxpayer's Statute, it should therefore only operate from the tax period following the one in progress on 1 January 2026.

If this were not the case, action would be urgently needed, as some companies are obliged to prepare quarterly and half-yearly reports that have to take into account tax impacts.

Minimum intervention required

If the rule is not set aside in the meantime, at the very least a corrective will be needed: an ad hoc rule for unlisted mutual funds. For these, a return to the previous criterion of valuation according to the normal value determined pursuant to article 9, paragraph 4 of the Italian Income Tax Code (i.e. the net asset value) seems appropriate, as proposed by Assogestioni.