Still uphill road for the Imu to the Church: the Council of State rejected the Treasury regulation governing the payment of the tax on properties belonging to religious movements and non-profit associations.
According to the State accounting judiciary, the Government "has made some application choices which not only fall outside the scope of the regulatory power attributed, but which were made in the absence of criteria or other regulatory indications aimed at specifying the non-commercial nature of an activity ”.
The government provision provides for the extension of the tax to all real estate owned by the Church not intended exclusively for worship. With the new regime, the executive would end a controversy that has been dragging on for years over the exemption so far guaranteed to religious congregations and ecclesiastical bodies. According to the legislation in force today, a hotel needs only to have a chapel in order not to pay the IMU.
The rejection of the Council of State, delaying the entry into force of the measure, risks not allowing the closure of the infringement procedure initiated against Italy by the European Commission, which already at the time of the ICI saw in the exemption for the Church a undue form of state aid.
Now the government has time by the end of the year to modify the decree since the law provides for the start of the application of the tax from 2013 January XNUMX.
