Italy: The declaration filled in only on the title page is not considered omitted

 published on 18 September 2024 | reading time approx. 3 minutes

The Court of Cassation held that a tax return submitted electronically and filled in only on the title page and accepted by the system cannot be considered omitted or null and void.

A declaration comprising only the filled-in title page and the internal pictures without figures cannot be qualified as omitted. Consequently, the taxpayer is entitled to supplement it at any time, also by means of the ordinary procedures of voluntary compliance. This is the principle contained in Order No. 21472, filed by the Court of Cassation on 31 July 2024.

The case submitted to the Court of Cassation involved a taxpayer who had submitted a 770 return for the FY2003, transmitted telematically in 2004, with only the title page filled in, while the internal panels did not show any amount. The Revenue Agency had contested this return and issued an ex officio assessment, classifying it as ‘non-existent’. This was a decisive factor in this case since the Revenue Agency had made use of the application of Article 43 of Presidential Decree 600/73, which provides for a longer assessment period in the case of an omitted declaration. Therefore, the qualification of the return was decisive in defining whether or not there was lapse of the tax administration's taxing power.

The taxpayer, on the other hand, had raised the objection that the declaration should be considered incomplete, with the consequence that the assessment had been issued beyond the time limit set by law.

The Revenue Agency had referred to the previous case enclosed in decision No. 10759 of 2006 of the Supreme Court, which, in dealing with the case of the 770 form with only the title page and without filling in the internal squares, had qualified the declaration as omitted. The Supreme Court observed that, with respect to that case, there had been a significant innovation in the telematic procedures for the transmission of declarations, since at the time it was a paper declaration.

In the new ‘telematic’ context, in fact, the ministerial programmes provide that, in the event of serious errors/missing entries in the forms filled in by taxpayers, ‘blocking errors’ occur that prevent the declaration from being sent. In the case at hand, the return filled in only on the title page had been accepted by the telematic system of the Revenue Agency without the generation of blocking errors; therefore, at the state of the proceedings, the declaration had to be equated to a ‘blank’ declaration and not to an omitted or null declaration. In the same sense, we point out a precedent of the jurisprudence on the merits (C.T. Prov. Brescia 12 August 2013 no. 71/5/13) that deemed valid the return filled in only in the title page as regularly accepted by the telematic system of the Revenue Agency.

This pronouncement further highlights the ‘anti-historicality’ of the prohibition to reinstate a declaration omitted more than 90 days after the due date. The doctrine, in fact, does not consider reasonable the position of jurisprudence with regard to the integration, even after years, of a ‘blank’ declaration, when, on the contrary, the return transmitted after 90 days is contested as an omission even though the payment of the taxes due has taken place. The sanctioning system should mitigate the punitive treatment of mere forgetfulness on the part of the taxpayer, if regularised within a reasonable period of time, by reserving appropriately proportionate sanctions for them. Accordingly, it is appropriate to learn from the Supreme Court's decision that in cases where there are uncertainties as to the data to be declared, one could consider the option of submitting within the time limits forms that do not include the exposure of figures.

In summary, a return that includes only the filling in of the title page and has been telematically transmitted without the receipt of blocking error notices may be considered equivalent to the submission of a ‘blank’ declaration, but cannot be defined as omitted or null. The Revenue Agency is responsible for carrying out checks and, in the event of errors, it is up to the Revenue Agency to generate a blocking error notice so that the taxpayer is aware of it and can correct the error through a subsequent declaration.

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