“Cure Italy Decree”: Fiscal And Corporate Law Measures

Italian Government has issued the Law Decree no. 18/2020 (“Cure Italy Decree”) providing measures to strengthen the National Health Service and economic support for families, workers and enterprises in connection with the COVID-19 emergency.

Among the other measures, the Decree introduces the suspension of deadline of the Italian tax authorities’ activities, provisions on litigation matters and tax procedures which could be affect the companies tax planning. The takeaways from “Cure Italy Decree” are the following.

Postponement of deadlines relating to tax offices operations

The deadlines relating to tax settlement, tax verification, tax assessment, tax collection, and tax dispute operations are suspended from 8 March 2020 until 31 May 2020 exclusively from the tax offices perspective.

Namely, the suspension period is applicable for the legal advisory deadlines within which the Italian tax authorities have to:

• Finalise tax inspections, issue the notice of assessment, request payments and pursue litigation.
• Answer to ruling applications, including those for which taxpayers submitted supplementary documentation or rectified its application upon the tax authority’s request.

Furthermore, the deadlines for the following procedures are suspended:

1. Cooperative compliance regime.
2. Reinforced cooperation and collaboration procedure.
3. International standard ruling procedure (such as APA).
4. Transfer pricing corresponding adjustments procedure.
5. Patent box procedure.

If the above-mentioned ruling applications are submitted during the suspension period, the answering deadline as well as any possible deadline for rectifying such application shall start on the first day following said suspension period (i.e., 1 June 2020).

During the period of suspension ruling applications and applications for legal advisory must be submitted electronically only and by using certified e-mail addresses.

New measures on tax litigation

All legal hearings for all proceedings pending at all judicial offices are postponed ex officio until a date after 15 April 2020. Even the expiry periods for any act relating to tax proceedings (including civil and criminal proceedings) are suspended.

Furthermore, the deadline for the application or the conclusion of a tax settlement procedures with Italian tax authorities are suspended from 8 March 2020 until 15 April 2020.

Therefore, the taxpayer does not seem to benefit from the longer term provided for the Italian tax authorities (31 May 2020).

Two-year extension of the tax assessment deadlines

Due to the reference to article 12 of Italian Legislative Decree no. 159/2015 (suspension of terms for exceptional events), those terms expiring within the year in which the exceptional event occurs are automatically postponed for two years more. Therefore, the 2015 tax assessment deadlines for individuals income tax (IRPEF), corporate income tax (IRES) and regional tax on productive activities (IRAP) as well as VAT expiring at the end of 2020 are postponed until 31 December 2022.

For more information, contact:

Gian Luca Nieddu, PARTNER | Transfer Pricing & Tax Value Chain at Hager & Partners

Via Borgogna n. 2 – 20122 Milano (ITALY)

E: gianluca.nieddu@hager-partners.it

T: +39 02 7780711

W: www.hager-partners.it