Removing unwanted hair or pimples is not just an aesthetic measure: if a doctor prescribes them they are real cures, therefore VAT-free. Treatments such as laser hair removal of legs and groin, the treatment of acne or some blemishes may therefore be exempt from VAT if carried out by an aesthetic doctor as a treatment for confirmed psycho-physical pathologies. This was established by a ruling from the First Instance Tax Court of Justice of Rimini.
The story
The controversy arose from assessment notices with which a Rimini office of the Revenue Agency requested the VAT payment of several thousand euros from a doctor for interventions that would not have been exempt by law. From 2023, Italian law establishes that cosmetic surgery interventions are exempt from tax to the extent that they are aimed at treating or curing people who, following an illness, trauma or congenital physical handicap, suffer psycho-physical discomfort. and, therefore, are aimed at protecting health. According to the appeal of the Rimini doctor, who also made medical records and a forensic medical report available, this case would include facial laser treatments, hair removal of the back, groin, chest or legs, as well as laser treatments for the décolleté, or for localized fat deposits. On the other hand, the Revenue Agency, with accounting officials and not doctors, had not produced technical opinions to say that those treatments had not been “medical”.
The decision
The Tax Court of Justice of Rimini therefore established that “the tax administration will not be able to make objections on the mere disagreement with the professional judgment of the doctor, having, on the contrary, to provide evidence of the same quality as that produced by the taxpayer in order to disavow the exemption regime applied”. Therefore it accepted the appeal, annulling the contested act and condemned the Revenue Agency to pay the legal costs.
Generally speaking, throughout the national territory the possibility of requesting VAT exemption on cosmetic surgery interventions for therapeutic purposes has been active since 17 December 2022. The deduction consists, in fact, in the possibility of including the expense incurred for the operation in deductible health expenses. Italy has implemented a European Union regulation on the matter and in this case the principle according to which it is the doctor who must prove that the aesthetic intervention is part of medical care remains valid. To refute them, the Revenue Agency will still need an investigation with a technical opinion, therefore another doctor, otherwise any appeal will be lost.
Tags: VAT prescription treatments
