The redditometer returns, income from 2018 onwards in the crosshairs

Approved the new ministerial decree on the redditometer that will be applied starting from the assessment notices relating to 2016 (in general, 2018, taking into account the lapses accrued in the meantime).
With the Dm of 7 May 2024, published in the Official Gazette, the assessment tool in question was reactivated, after being suspended by Article 10 of Decree 87/2018. With the latter regulation, the previous Ministerial Decree of 16 September 2015 was repealed, with effect from the assessments referring to the 2016 tax period. At the same time, it was stipulated that the future decree should be based on a methodology developed with the assistance of Istat and consumer associations.

Hence the issuance of the decree under review, which provides for the launch of the new synthetic determination of income on the basis of both the expenses presumptively attributable to the taxpayer on the basis of a sampling by family nuclei (11 types) and by distribution over the various areas (5) of the national territory, and of the savings quota formed in each year, and of the expenses actually incurred, resulting from the Tax Registry Office, also different from those typified in the table attached to the decree.
In the absence of data found in the tax registry, essential goods are taken into consideration in order to position oneself at the limit of the absolute poverty level and, in the absence of useful indications obtained in the contradictory procedure with the taxpayer, the relative value estimated for ISTAT purposes is assumed.

Expenses incurred by tax dependent family members are also imputed to the taxpayer. On the other hand, costs relating "exclusively and effectively" to the exercise of business or self-employment activities are not taken into account, provided this is duly proven.
Investment costs are taken net of disinvestments made in the year and in the four years preceding the purchase. The purchase of real estate is valued net of the loan taken out for the purchase.
You are reminded that the legislation of the redditometro provides for a double cross-examination with the taxpayer, first, in the proper investigative phase, in order to find the information useful for the formation of the assessment act, and afterwards, in the form of the initiation of the procedure of accertamento con adesione.

Article 4 of the decree outlines the content of the contrary proof to be provided by the taxpayer. This relates to the fact that:
a) the financing of the expenses took place with income other than that relating to the tax period assessed or with income that is exempt, subject to withholding tax or in any event legally non-taxable;
b) the expense was incurred by a different person;
c) the expenses actually incurred are of a different amount from the amount attributed;
d) the portion of savings used to finance for consumption and investment was formed in previous years.
This is not, as can be seen, a free contrary proof but a 'constrained' contrary proof, albeit with a rather broad content. This, however, is in contrast with what can be deduced from the law, which, when it imposes the double cross-examination already at the preliminary investigation stage, seems to depict the nature of a simple presumption, and not of a legal presumption, of the instrument in question.
The effectiveness of the Ministerial Decree operates from the assessments relating to the year 2016, but considering that 2016 and 2017 have now lapsed, except in the case of omitted declaration, generally the first year concerned is 2018.