The campaign against tax evasion launched by theInland Revenue has several faces, including that of putting a stop to the so-called VAT numbers "open and close" and therefore the Agency has issued 1.221 provisions of termination of office of the same (data at the end of July), as part of the application of the legislation established by the last Budget law designed specifically to avoid the evasive phenomenon, through which companies were created with the sole objective of evading the tax and, consequently, become a vehicle for VAT fraud.
Regions affected by the measures
Compared to the total, 359 of these VAT numbers were checked and then closed in Lombardia (equal to 29%), 254 in Lazio (equal to 21%) and 166 in Campania (equal to 14%). Here are the speeches below Toscana e Veneto with 105 closures in all. Considering the rest of the country, the measures involved a total of 232 subjects. As reported by the Revenue Agency, "the risk criteria for identifying the VAT numbers to be subjected to control and the conditions for the closure of the office were identified in a provision of the Revenue signed by the director, Ernesto Maria Ruffini, on 16 May 2023”.
Further checks on 500 VAT numbers
Not only. Precisely thanks to the analyzes carried out by the Agency's anti-fraud structures on the basis of the new regulations and with the help of a new and specific IT application, a further list of more than 500 VAT numbers opened between 2021 January 31 and 2022 December 2, in which "subjective anomalies and characterized by substantial economic transactions, totaling over XNUMX billion euros, on which further investigations will be conducted".
What does the new law say?
The budget law for 2023 introduced two paragraphs to the VAT decree (Presidential decree no. 633/1972) which provide for new measures to prevent and contrast the evasion phenomena connected with the release of VAT numbers. In particular, paragraph 15-bis.1 provides for the ex officio termination of the "account" for those economic operators characterized by profiles of serious and/or systematic evasion and non-fulfilment of tax obligations in the exercise of activities which end after a short life cycle ("open and close VAT numbers").
Paragraph 15-bis.2, on the other hand, establishes that the recipient of a provision for termination of the VAT number can request the attribution of a new "number" only upon presentation of a surety policy or a bank guarantee with a duration of three years and the minimum amount of 50 thousand euros (or, in any case, parameterized to the tax violations committed, if of a higher amount).
