The soap opera about penalties for who does not charge with the Pos continues. The law that obliges traders and professionals to accept debit and credit cards it has existed since 2014, but so far it has always been useless precisely because it does not establish any penalty for transgressors. The legislative hole was about to be filled (moreover with negligible sanctions), but in extremis Parliament postponed it for a year - by 2022 to 2023 – the entry into force of the measure. And he did it on the eve of the holidays, minimizing the echo of the news.
The standard has been included in the conversion law of the PNRR decree n. 152 of 2021definitively approved by the Senate the 23 December with a vote of confidence. Article 19 ter - added with an amendment signed by Stefano Fassina (Leu) and Rebecca Frassini (Lega) - reads as follows:
"Starting from 1 January 2023, in cases of non-acceptance of a payment, of any amount, made with a payment card referred to in paragraph 4, by an obligated party pursuant to the aforementioned paragraph 4, the against the same subject, the pecuniary administrative sanction of the payment of a sum equal to 30 euros, increased by 4 percent of the value of the transaction for which the acceptance of the payment has been refused. For the sanctions relating to the violations referred to in this paragraph, the procedures and terms established by the law of 24 November 1981, n. 689, with the exception of article 16 on the subject of reduced payments. The competent authority to receive the report referred to in article 17 of the same law n. 689 of 1981 is the prefect of the province in which the violation was committed. The assessment is carried out pursuant to article 13, first and fourth paragraphs, of the aforementioned law no. 689 of 1981".
This isn't the first time that politics kills the penalties for those who do not charge the Pos. The latest exploit came with the Tax Decree linked to the 2020 Budget Law (the N. 124 of 2019), which in the first version introduced the same sanctions introduced a few days ago. At the time, the rule was removed from the final provision, while this time only a postponement has arrived. However, it is not certain that next year Parliament will not decide to intervene again to cancel the sanctions. Or, perhaps, to make them slip again.
