ROME. “No amnesty or cleanup,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said a few days ago, “in the maneuver there are rules of common sense, advantageous for the state, for families and for businesses”. But between the excerpt of the mini bills worth less than a thousand euros up to 2015, the scrapping of those of a higher amount for loads from 2000 to 30 June 2022 and amnesties on good-natured notices, omitted payments and assessments, the tax truce introduced by the government promises substantial savings for unfaithful taxpayers. Apart from the amnesty of tax crimes, blocked by the barrage of opposition and by the stomachaches of some exponents of the same majority, in the package of 12 regularizations lined up by the budget law there is everything. From the amnesty on cryptocurrencies not declared in the tax return, which can be brought to light by paying only 3.5% of the assets held at the end of each year or of their value at the time of selling them, to the disputed “Save-football”, which allows clubs to suspend 889 million VAT payments.
In the menu there is also the possibility of repairing the purely formal errors committed in the tax return, by paying a lump sum of 200 euros, while for those who have skipped paying a few installments to the tax authorities, they can get back on track by paying the amount due in twenty comfortable installments or in a single payment by 31 March next. All without paying penalties and interest. On the other hand, the regularization of road fines is going uphill. Removed from the scrapping of the mini-folders, the Municipalities will have to decide whether to subscribe to them or not. And it is difficult to do so given that they are worth about 2 billion euros. Almost impossible to collect but recorded in the balance sheet under “residual assets”. Excluding fines and missed social security payments, the remaining mini folders worth less than a thousand euros relating to the period from 2000 to 2015 will automatically be thrown away by the tax authorities without the taxpayer having to request it. For the rest, he gets rid of everything but paying much less, as calculated for us by the tax office of Gianluca Timpone.
IT FILE
Above a thousand euros the fine drops from 40% to 5%
Two paths are envisaged by the Budget law to remedy the tax bills: if nothing is paid for less than a thousand euros, the amount due is paid above that amount with a surcharge limited to 5 per cent, instead of interest and penalties which on average they are worth 40 percent.
The amnesty in the text amended in the Chamber is extended from 2000 to 30 June 2022. The application must be presented by 30 April next, but with Sunday and Labor Day in between, it will be postponed to 2 May. But let’s see how much you save.
Let’s say we “forgot” to pay 15,000 euros of personal income tax to the tax authorities. Between interest and penalties today the bill rises to 20,200 euros. With only the 5% increase it will instead be 15,750 euros for a saving of 4,450 euros, to which is added the other advantage of payment by installments over five years, which in this case corresponds to an amount of 218.75 euros per month.
The advantage is there, but «the scrapping of folders for amounts exceeding one thousand euros could prove to be a flop – is the prediction of the tax expert Gianluca Timpone – because it turns out to be pejorative compared to the previous versions. So much so that the old scrapping was in the end only paid for by 50 per cent of the taxpayers who had requested it».
Discount from 7 thousand euros in case of escape from 10 thousand
In the case of amnesties for pending disputes, the accounts change according to the degree and the outcome of the judgement. Let’s take the case of a taxpayer who has been assessed an evasion of 10,000 euros. With 4,500 euros in penalties and another 1,000 in interest, the bill rises to 20,500 euros. If the same taxpayer is still waiting for the first hearing to be fixed with the amnesty introduced in the manoeuvre, if he wants to close the accounts with the tax authorities early, he can take advantage of a 10 percent discount on the amount due, plus the zeroing of interest and sanctions.
Thus the disbursement drops to 13,500 euros, with a saving of 7,000. Which becomes more conspicuous if the taxpayer can instead claim a victory in the first instance of judgment. In this case, in fact, he will be able to count on a 60 percent reduction of the usual 10,000 euro value of the assessment, plus the zeroing of penalties and interest. Thus the outlay would be reduced to less than a third, with a saving of 14,500 euros compared to the initial 66,500.
The amnesty then becomes almost total if the taxpayer wants to close it after having won before the judge even on appeal. In this case, in fact, it will be enough to pay 15 percent of the value of the disputed assessment, thus reducing the amount to be paid to the tax authorities from 20,500 to 2,250 euros.
You pay only 3%, saving 2,700 euros out of 14,000
There will also be a fiscal truce for the amicable notices received from taxpayers for the errors that emerged after the automated checks of the tax authorities. To date, if the Revenue Agency finds irregularities in the tax return, it informs the taxpayer with a notice, precisely “good-natured”, and it is possible to settle the matter by paying 30 percent of the penalties due on the undeclared sums. With the tax truce introduced by Melonomics, the penalties are reduced to a flicker, just 3 percent. It being understood that the taxes and social security contributions due must be paid in full. Translated into a nutshell, if the tax authorities find 10,000 euros of non-payment of income tax, today between interest and penalties you get to pay 14,000 euros: tomorrow, with the new regulations in force, it will be 11,300, with a saving of 2,700 euros.
The amnesty is valid for the tax periods ranging from 2019 to 31 December 2021. But be careful, for the sums due, the payment term must not have yet expired on the date the amnesty enters into force, i.e. next January 1st, tomorrow. The facilitated definition also applies to sums whose installments are still in progress when the Budget law comes into force. The discount is always maxi, with the fine limited to 3 percent. —
Municipalities form a wall, 2 billion cannot be renounced
Goodbye to the regularization of road fines, which correspond to a mountain of tax bills under one thousand euros each but with a total value of around two billion euros.
Once the fines from the amnesty of tax bills up to one thousand euros have been removed, the maneuver has unloaded the hot potato on the Municipalities, which however have their hands tied. This is despite the fact that the Deputy Minister of the Economy, Maurizio Leo, has repeatedly remarked that it costs more for entities to collect the mini tax bills than they are worth.
The problem is that the municipal administrations have nonetheless regularly recorded those fines that have not been collected for six years or more in the budget, under the heading “residual assets”. And without state compensation, which is not even on the horizon, canceling the sums, even equal to several tens of millions in the large centers, would then mean not having as much financial coverage for current expenses.
The first version of the maneuver would have allowed the fines from 2010 to 2016 to be remedied, which in reality would have been time-barred as the fateful five years have elapsed. But as the tax expert Gianluca Timpone explains, «often this is not the case. Because all this must be contested, otherwise it is necessary to assert one’s rights in court before the justice of the peace”.