The Italian legal system is about to launch the tax reform which will target both direct taxes on the income of individuals and companies, as well as indirect taxes including excise duties on energy products and green products. And in fact, the Council of Ministers has approved the draft enabling law for the tax reform, to be concluded within twenty-four months. Especially with regard to excise duties, harmonized indirect taxes, the legislator has established various objectives: first of all, to favour the taxation of green energy products, remodulating the taxation and the rates according to ..read more

Context Italy is well known for its cultural heritage, amazing landscapes, vibrant SMEs, brands, skilled work force and many other features, including its food…. It is also known in the international tax world for the advances of its tax administration towards more efficient and innovative practices, such as electronic invoicing, pre-filled tax returns, and the use of machine learning techniques. This image is sometimes affected by a quite aggressive (and unique) approach in claiming the existence of a permanent establishment (PE) of non-resident operators. This applies both when the non-resid ..read more

The transition toward a cashless society is at the heart of many public policy discussions. The move is driven by several factors, such as the spread of debit and credit cards, the development of mobile and instant payment technologies favoured by FinTech and digital platforms, as well as the effects of the pandemic and the increasing time spent online. Many governments and public institutions – among which, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Federal Reserve (FED) – are evaluating the design and implementation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), while other countries like China ..read more

Through the judgment in Case C-714/20 issued on 12 May 2022 [1], the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) clarified that the indirect customs representative is liable, jointly and severally with the importer, only for customs duties relating to the goods and not for import VAT. This conclusion consolidates the EU jurisprudence on the subject, followed by the Italian Supreme Court at the national level. The Italian Customs Agency notified various tax deeds to the importers of goods and to the freight forwarder who had acted as an indirect customs representative. The Italian Customs Age ..read more

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), by means of an Order in Case C-255/20 of 9 November 2021 [1], established the incompatibility with EU law, in particular with Directives 2008/118/EC and 92/12/EEC, of the Italian Regional Tax on Petrol for Automotive (IRBA), due to the absence of a specific purpose attributed to it by the Italian lawmaker. Following the CJEU’s decision, the IRBA must be set aside, and a right to reimbursement for the taxpayer arises. The IRBA, introduced by Law No. 158/1990 and Legislative Decree No. 398/1990, is a non-harmonized indirect tax used in Italian r ..read more

After more than 40 years, in December 2020, Italy and Switzerland signed a new agreement concerning cross-border workers. This update, part of a joint political commitment dated 2015, arrived precisely at the right time. Indeed, the pre-existent, and still in force, 1974 Swiss-Italian Agreement showed all its inconsistencies during 2020 when inappropriate rules had to face a profound change of ordinary habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Commuters represent a crucial category of workers, often underestimated. Based on official statistics, Switzerland can count more than 85.000 Italian residen ..read more

Tax authorities have relied on informers for investigative leads perhaps since taxes were first imposed. In the 21st Century high profile cases of theft of taxpayer information by employees of service providers including banks and professional firms have provided data not only of interest to tax authorities but also as a driver of international tax reform. In the UK, revelations by an employee of HMRC, the tax authority, was also one of the triggers for the BEPS project. Several legal issues arise in such cases such as the use to which the information may be put by tax authorities and admissib ..read more

Introduction On November 23, 2020 Italian Tax Authorities (“ITA”) issued the Provision no. 360494/2020 (“Provision”) by which it introduced new measures[1] as for the content and validity of the transfer pricing documentation (“TPD”) – to be prepared by Italian resident enterprises and Italian permanent establishments of foreign entities – in order to benefit from the so called “administrative penalty protection”[2] in the case of transfer pricing adjustments made by tax authorities. The new measures – applicable from the fiscal period 2020[3] – replace the previous provision of the ITA date ..read more

The Italian legislation on excise duties, and in particular Article 24 of Legislative Decree no. 504 of 26 October 1995 (hereinafter, “the Italian Excise Duties Act”) that provides an exemption for fuels used for navigation in general with the carve-out of recreational shipping, has been considered incompatible with EU law by the EU Commission recently. Notably, the Commission has launched an infringement procedure before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) [1], arguing that the Italian exemption on excise duties for pleasure boats is incompatible with Article 14 of Directive 200 ..read more

On 10 July 2020, the Italian Supreme Court (also ‘Court’) issued its decision No. 14756 (‘Decision 14756/2020’, published in H&I 2020/470 with comments by Arginelli and Tenore) dealing, amongst others, with the interpretation of the beneficial owner requirement under the Interest and  Royalty Directive (Directive 2003/49/EC; ‘IRD’) and the abuse of the IRD. The case concerned the payment of interest by an Italian company (‘Itaco’) to its controlling shareholder, a Luxembourg sub-holding (‘Luxco’) which, in turn, was controlled by another Luxembourg company. Interest paid by Itaco accr ..read more