The Revenue Agency, after having crossed the databases at its disposal, wrote "to more than 500 taxpayers, whose 2014 tax return has not been received“. The Ministry of the Economy wrote it, specifying that in this way there is "the opportunity to comply quickly, spontaneously and with a very limited penalty".
The Mef then writes that "the fight against tax evasion is a government priority, essential for recovering financial resources useful for reducing the average level of taxation" and that "in this context, the Revenue Agency plays a crucial role" . Words that come at a difficult time for the Agency, which had to downgrade 800 executives to the role of officials after the sentence of the Constitutional Court which judged their promotions to be illegitimate, because they arrived through internal procedures and not through competition. About 400 of them have sued Palzzo Chigi.
Furthermore, the ministry denies the undersecretary Enrico Zanetti and supports the director Rossella Orlandi, who in recent days had denounced the lack of support of the tax agencies from the government: "Thus the agencies risk dying, they remain standing only for the dignity of the people who work there,” he said. Zanetti, the undersecretary for the economy, was given a blow for these statements of his: "If the director continues to express his malaise and to say that the Revenue Agency is dying, his resignation will become inevitable."
In the note, the Mef also recalls "the main initiatives of the Government to radically change the activity of contrasting tax evasion and encouraging spontaneous compliance".
TAX REFORM ON DELEGATION OF PARLIAMENT
The Government has implemented the fiscal delegation (Law 23/2014) by amending the legislation in the sense of making it clearer and unambiguous, so as to prevent abusive behavior and margins of interpretation; in a context of greater clarity, the tax administration plays a new role, in which it does not wait for the taxpayer to pass through but on the contrary proposes a comparison in the presence of anomalous data before proceeding with sanctioning proceedings.
THE CROSSING OF DATABASES
With the stability law for 2015, the rules for the so-called "change-to-change control" were introduced which promote the crossing of databases, thanks to which the Revenue Agency can report compliance problems to taxpayers before activating the sanctioning process, in order to encourage spontaneous compliance. The most evident result of this novelty is the communication from the Revenue Agency to more than 500 taxpayers whose 2014 tax return has not been received: in this way taxpayers have the opportunity to comply quickly, spontaneously and with a very limited sanction rather than becoming the subject of a very onerous administrative procedure.
PRE-FILLED ONLINE INCOME RETURN
With the introduction in 2015 of the pre-filled online tax return for 2014 income, a great step forward was taken in the collaborative relationship between the tax authorities and taxpayers. The digital transmission of the declaration made it possible to effectively cross-check the databases to identify taxpayers who should have declared 2014 income but did not.
The electronic invoicing obligation introduced towards central public administrations in June 2014 and extended to all public administrations in March of this year allows the tax administration to have visibility on all that is invoiced in terms of supply to the various branches of the State.
REVERSE CHARGE AND SPLIT PAYMENT
The introduction of these VAT payment methods as from 1 January 2015 has allowed the Treasury to record higher revenues from this tax estimated at around 1 billion euros in the year.
The voluntary collaboration of Italian taxpayers who hold undeclared capital abroad is a procedure that allows these positions to be regularized against the payment of any taxes that may have been evaded. The activation of the procedure by the taxpayer allows to avoid some consequences of any evasion except in cases of self-laundering.
BILATERAL AGREEMENTS AGAINST INTERNATIONAL EVASION
In these 20 months, 8 bilateral agreements have been ratified and new bilateral agreements signed with 9 tax jurisdictions to adapt double taxation agreements to make them more effective against tax evasion and capital migration.
MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS AGAINST INTERNATIONAL EVASION
Italy has been one of the promoters of the protocols for the automatic exchange of information between tax administrations thanks to which it will be possible to identify Italian taxpayers who are trying to hide assets established abroad from the tax authorities by evading taxes.
MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS AGAINST TAX AVOIDANCE
Multinational companies have the ability to transfer costs and profits between branches so as to take advantage of the diversity of tax systems in the countries in which they operate. Italy has joined the OECD action plan against grassroots erosion and profit sharing.
EVOLUTION OF TAX AGENCIES
The Ministry of Economy and Finance has commissioned the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to carry out an assessment of the tax agency model in comparison with international best practices, in order to give operational implementation to the legislative principle of new cooperation between the tax authorities and the taxpayer adopted with the tax reform.
