The national tax authority has delivered some guidelines concerning the rules on the requests of VAT refund that were modified by Legislative Decrees n. 156 e 158 of …
Circolare n. 33 of 22 July 2016 on the execution of refunds – clarifications on the conditions for the exemptions from the guarantee due by the applicant
The national tax authority has delivered some guidelines concerning the rules on the requests of VAT refund that were modified by Legislative Decrees n. 156 e 158 of 24 September 2015. The aim of the clarification is to define which are the conditions to be fulfilled to exempt the taxpayer established in Italy to pay the guarantee in order to obtain the VAT refund. In many situations it is possible to avoid to pay in advance such guarantee where there’s a tax audit on going or some penalties were already issued.
In particular there’s one point of the document which is focused on the penalties that can be issued to members of the payment system of groups of taxable persons provided for by article 73 of Dpr 633/72. In that case the guarantee is the requirement for the compensation of VAT between members.
COM(2016) 598 final
The Council of Europe authorized Italy to extend the deadline of the derogation for VAT deduction related to automobile purchases. In fact that derogation allows to deduct a limited part (40%) of the VAT paid for automobiles because it is presumed that the use of them is mixed (personal and economic) and not only for business purposes.
Circolare N. 31 /E on the VAT treatment of social, sanitary, educational supplies carried out by social cooperatives.
After the case EU PILOT 6174/14/TAXU, archived with the decision of 16th of June 2016), the reduced rate of 5% is applied to the social, sanitary, educational supplies carried out by social cooperatives. For the activities of the same nature but carried out by ONLUS the exemption provided by article 10 of DPR n. 633 of 1972 is applicable.
Circolare N. 21/E of 25 May 2016, on the extension of the Reverse charge mechanism for supplies of “videogame devices, tablet PC and laptops”.
Article 17, sixth paragraph, letter. c), of DPR n. 633 of 1972, has been amended by D.Lgs. 11 February 2016, n. 24, extending the reverse charge mechanism provided by article 199 of the VAT Directive to videogame devices (NC 9504 50 00), laptops (NC 8471 30 00) and tablet PC (NC 8471 30 00) to tackle VAT fraud.
Risoluzione N. 72 /E of 02/09/2016 on the fiscal treatment of companies that carry out economic activity related to virtual money (bitcoins)
The national tax authority has delivered some guidelines concerning the taxation of supplies related to virtual money. The national practice endorsed the interpretation of the ECJ in judgment of 22 October 2015, in case C-264/14, on the application of exemptions for that kind of transactions, according to article 135 (1) e) of the VAT Directive.
Circolare N. 38/E of 16/09/2016 on the collaborative compliance regime between businesses and the tax administration
With legislative decree of 5 August 2015, n. 128 the Italian legislator issued a new regime of enhanced collaboration between the tax administration and taxpayers in order to provide legal certainty to the tax system.
For tax payers that fulfil the conditions to apply to that regime it is possible to benefit of a reward system based on four main measures:
- quick access to rulings;
- reduction of penalties and suspension of the tax collection in case of pending tax audit;
- exclusion of the guarantee necessary to obtain the refund (for direct and indirect taxes);
- publication of the name of the business in the list of the compliant tax payers on the web page of the national tax administration.
The conditions to be fulfilled to apply for the cooperative compliance regime are the following:
- the taxpayer must have their own tax risk assessment system;
- the taxpayer must have a turnover of 10 million Euro at least, or 1 million Euro to have access to the Pilot Project;
- the taxpayer not established in Italy must have a permanent establishment in Italy at least.
Prof. Paolo Centore
