Tcf, controls and processes: the work of tax lawyers at the heart of the reform

Cooperative compliance, with the expanded scope and the requirement to certify the Tax Control Framework (Tcf). Controls, with the use of artificial intelligence systems in preventive audits and the push for spontaneous regularisation. Litigation, with the digitalisation of the process and the revision of the geography of the Courts. Without forgetting the tax neutrality of aggregation and reorganisation operations of firms, the new discipline of business crises or the regulatory reorganisation in single texts.

The tax reform affects the work of tax lawyers in several ways. Among the various fronts opened up by the enabling act 111/2023 and the implementing decrees, however, the impact on the profession stands out in particular in three areas: collaborative compliance, assessment methods, and dispute management.

First of all, the proxy has given a new impetus to cooperative compliance, for a new cooperative relationship between companies and the tax authorities. "A relationship that does not in itself affect the figure of the external lawyer, because it concerns large companies with their own organisational models for reporting tax risk. But which for tax lawyers opens up great spaces in the certification of the management and control system of this tax risk, i.e. the Tcf,' observes Gaetano Ragucci, president of Anti (National Association of Italian Tax Lawyers). "It is the expression of an activity that does not stop at preventive consultancy and litigation assistance, but requires transversal skills and interdisciplinary organisational abilities. And which is destined to expand in view of the progressive lowering of the compliance entry threshold, now set at 750 million in business or revenue, which will fall to 500 million for 2026-2027 and 100 million from 2028.

"While 'from the bottom' the design and effectiveness of the two-year arrangement will be refined, also thanks to the continuous influx of data," explains Ragucci. Who adds: "The strengthening of the tax authorities' databases, when it leads to timely findings, is certainly positive, with all the consequences in terms of boosting spontaneous regularisation and facilitated settlement chances. While the danger always comes from the use of probabilistic statistical methodologies and stochastic criteria that can lead to questionable results. On the other hand, cross-examination has been disappointing so far, due to the large number of exceptions that do not provide for it, and to the way it is implemented, which is not always such as to make it informed and effective'.

With the increasing amount of information that has flowed and is flowing into the databases, the Inland Revenue has impressive resources to be able to accurately snapshot the different income situations of citizens and companies. A paraphernalia that is still fully unused, but whose potential prompts lawyers to question the development of defence tools. Starting with one point: what data is used and how. This is the question that Uncat, the National Union of Tax Lawyers Chambers, has been stressing for some time about database security and privacy protection.