Tax truce between benefits and interpretive doubts

Law no. 197/2022, partly to fulfill election promises, partly to reduce litigation, in compliance with the so called PNRR, provided for a very large number of tax remissions.
Rarely has there been such a large number of amnesties at the same time, allowing taxpayers to choose among several alternatives (depending on the acts received) to regularize missed payments and/or settle pending tax disputes.
Between the tax remissions recently provided, it is possible to list:
•   The so-called “scrapping” of the payment injunctions, with penalty and interest waiver.
•    The regularization of formal violations, with payment of 200 euros per year.
•    The facilitated repentance, with abatement to 1/18th of penalties.
•    Adherence and facilitated acquiescence to tax assessment notices and PVCs (also with abatement, in various ways, of penalties).
•    Definition of pending tax disputes, with penalties and interest being waived and the tax paid in different percentages depending on the level of judgment and whether the Tax Authority lost in the last ruling filed.
•    Facilitated conciliation during the judicial proceeding, which, if an agreement is reached with the tax authorities, also involves the reduction of penalties to 1/18th.
Most of the abovementioned remissions also involve the possibility, for the taxpayer who wishes to take advantage of them, of particularly long installment plans (for example, facilitated adherence to the notices entails the possibility of paying the quantum due in 20 quarterly installments of equal amount).
Just as the amnesties are numerous, so are the rules that provide for them, and taxpayers (as well as the professionals who assist them) must untangle themselves among a swarm of cross-references that do not help the interpreter. The Legislature's typos, differences from past facilitated definitions (from which the rules have been partially borrowed, not without substantial differences), as well as discrepancies between literal provisions and their illustrative reports, certainly do not make the job any easier.
An emblematic example of the reading difficulties (partially clarified by the documents recently published by the Tax Administration) are the interpretative doubts (also of a systematic nature) related to the definition of pending disputes. In fact, unicum of the present legislation (which, as mentioned, is almost literally borrowed from the 2019 definition) is the possibility of also defining disputes involving mere tax liquidation or collection acts (e.g., payment injunctions). It opens, for example, to the possibility of defining omitted tax payments through the payment, if the litigation is pending before the lower court, of only 90 percent of the unpaid amount (with elimination of interest and penalties imposed).
The above summary exemplification makes clear the interest that taxpayers, with tax liabilities, will show with respect to the current forms of remission, but also the interpretative difficulties that the current legislation presents. The help of a professional, generally necessary when dealing with tax issues, assumes even greater importance in the case at hand, where it will be essential (within the narrow timeframe provided by the provisions) to evaluate the pros and cons of the various alternatives and their applicability to individual, diverse and, at times, complex concrete cases.

Avv. Paolo Visconti

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