The income meter is back to register Italian taxpayers, something you wouldn't believe. The fiscal innovation is contained in the ministerial decree of 7 May signed by the deputy minister of Economy, Maurizio Leo, and was published in recent days in the Official Gazette. The objective of this measure is to combat tax evasion by allowing the Revenue Agency to reconstruct, favoring the timely data collected from investigations, the taxpayer's real ability to pay, compared to what was declared.
It should be specified that the income meter is not a new measure, but dates back to 1993, when it was called a “synthetic assessment tool”, then over the years it was revised, modified and cancelled. The current income meter picks up where its predecessor left off (assessments until 2015) and corrects “a distortion that was created in 2018, when the Conte 1 Government abolished the Renzi Government's income meter, and had simultaneously established that a new decree should be issued with precise limits to guarantee the taxpayer, so as to limit the inductive content of the assessment to a minimum”, Leo explained yesterday after Forza Italia and Lega dissociated themselves from this measure. Tension that led to the decision to have Leo explain the innovations of the income meter in the next meeting.
A measure that certainly sets limits compared to the past but which always has the aim of filing taxpayers in search of errors. A positive note is that the new income meter has put in black and white how the information must prevail over the various calculations made by the Revenue Agency: “In any case, the amount of expenses resulting from the information present in the tax register or acquired during contradictory with the taxpayer is always considered prevalent compared to that calculated inductively on the basis of the elements of contributory capacity indicated in Table A or on the basis of the expenses deduced from studies and socio-economic analyzes of the sector”, we read from the text of the tax decree. This is certainly an important aspect given that since the summary checks resumed, which had been suspended with Covid, in the absence of a reference text the checks that were carried out had no limits to respect. The current decree instead sets limits, albeit very broad, within which the tax authorities can move. Among the items to be looked at are expenses, for example, relating to shoes purchased, medical visits, holidays, meals away from home, expenses for various transfers, condominium water and the mortgage. To these must also be added all the information deriving from the electronic invoice. Data that in the past was not possible to use, given that it also includes sensitive information and has little relevance to tax issues. However, the inclusion of these entries was permitted after a discussion with the Privacy Guarantor and his relative consent. Another news from Istat. In fact, there may be expenditure items for which it becomes difficult to have precise data and in this case the annual surveys produced by the institute on family expenditure will be used, or other socio-economic analyzes and studies.
To make Big Brother more precise, eleven different types of family units were also created (example: single person under 35, couples without children, couples without children aged 65 or over), divided according to 5 macro geographical areas . The target? Estimate the reference contribution capacity.
The proof is always up to the taxpayer
The only positive note, in case you end up caught in these tangles, are the new rules on preventive cross-examination: the citizen has a double available with the Revenue Agency, but will always have to demonstrate that the financing of the expenses occurred with different incomes from those owned in the tax period studied, or that it is income subject to withholding tax as a tax, or in any case legally excluded from the formation of the tax base. The taxpayer can then also demonstrate that the amount of expenses charged to him by the Revenue Agency have a different amount or that the portion of savings used for consumption and investments was formed over the course of previous years.
The icing on the cake is that the controls will start from 2016 onwards. It is worth saying that there was no need for a new income meter.
Is this really the tool with which the government wants to fight tax evasion? But does it really make sense to use something that, even if modified, is the result of something useless? And which among other things is dividing the majority within itself? So Meloni did well to clarify things with a move very similar to a reverse…
