Continue to hold court there complaints on the applicability, or otherwise, of the extension introduced byarticle 67, DL 18/2020 (so-called “Cura Italia”) of expiry date for the notification of assessment notices related taxes annuities not directly “affected” from the effects of emergency provisions from Covid-19.
In the first and hardest phase of the pandemic, the Legislator conceded a series of extensions of the terms of tax obligations in favor of taxpayers, including those relating to declarative obligations and of paymentwhich expired in period between 8.3.2020 and 31.5.2020. Likewise, a similar deferral, also in favor of taxing bodieswho could have benefited from a correspondent 85 day suspension for the activities of liquidation, control, assessment, collection and litigation. Furthermore, thanks to the referral made to thearticle 12, paragraph 1, Legislative Decree 159/2015this extension would also have been applied with reference to statute of limitations and forfeiture for the notification of tax deeds.
Despite theRevenue Agency provided right away an extensive interpretation of the application of the regulatory provision in question, the analysis of most recent jurisprudence of merit highlights a prevalent trend of tax judges aimed at declaring such an extension is unacceptabledespite some more isolated pro-interpretation pronouncements from the Financial Administration, especially as regards the field of local taxes.
In particular, in circular no. 18/E/2020the Internal Revenue Service clarified how this suspension would affect any term in which the period 8.3.2020 – 31.5.2020 fell. Consequently, for all tax periods for which the assessment deadlines had not yet expired at the time the suspension came into force (i.e. those from 2015 to 2018 for Irpef and “solar” Ires subjects), the notification deadline of warnings would have been moved forward 85 days.
This interpretation was immediately arousing perplexity in doctrine, since it did not appear that the Legislator’s intention was to introduce a unequal treatment, providing different extensions for the financial administration and taxpayers. Even more so, if we consider that he himself was recalled article 12, paragraph 1, Legislative Decree 159/2015established that “the provisions regarding the suspension of payment deadlines […] in favor of subjects affected by exceptional events, also entail, for a corresponding period of timerelative to same revenue, the suspension of the deadlines foreseen for the obligations […] in favor of tax authorities”. An interpretation, this, which was also censored by the Court of Tax Justice of First Instance of Turin: in the sentence no. 890/2022the Piedmontese panel rejected, in fact, the Revenue Agency’s thesis, specifying how “the Circular invoked by the Office has, evidently, binding force for offices onlynot rising to the force of law, not even interpretative”.
In a similar sense, they expressed themselves First Instance Tax Court of Justice of Latina, with sentence no. 974/2023 and the Court of Tax Justice of First Instance of Prato, with decision no. 87/2023: in both cases, the judges confirmed how the extension should be considered valid only for the year in which the exceptional event occurred And cannot, however, extend “in a cascade” on the subsequent ones, under penalty of evident unfair benefit in favor of the taxing bodies and others damage to taxpayerswhich certainly they were unable to enjoy 85 additional days for the fulfillment of their tax duties in the years following 2020.
Furthermore, both the Lazio and Tuscan colleges extended their analysis tofurther provision introduced in the emergency period to regulate the deadlines relating to the issuing and notification of tax documents. The reference is toarticle 157, DL 34/2020pursuant to which the notices (however named) whose deadlines, to be calculated without taking into account the suspension period initially established by the aforementioned article 67, DL 18/2020would have expired between 8.3.2020 and 31.12.2020, they still had to be issued by this last datebut notified between 1.3.2021 and 28.2.2022.
The will it was that of only delay the notification over time of the documents which, however, they should have been in any case drawn up and issued within the ordinary deadline of forfeiture, this also in consideration of the fact that, as confirmed in the aforementioned circular no. 18/E/2020in that period of time the activities of the offices were neither suspended nor interrupted. Well, in the opinion of the judges, it would have been unreasonable believe that for the documents expiring in 2020, the year most affected by the pandemic crisis, the Legislator wanted to restore the ordinary limitation period, while for those to be notified in subsequent periods, when the emergency could now be considered overcome, he had wanted grant a longer deadline.
While waiting for a more consistent line of jurisprudential merit to be formed on the issue and, finally, for the possibility of expressing the Court of Cassationyou can’t help but welcome the orientation of the recent rulings of the judges of merit, aimed at avoid an unjustified delay in the deadlines for notification of notices of assessment to the benefit of the tax authorities based exclusively on an interpretation of the law for internal use, but not very consistent with the ratio legis and the exceptional nature of emergency provision.
