Tax bills: with the amnesty in the government’s study, a two-billion blow in the sponge on unpaid fines is announced

Behind the amnesty of the mini tax bills of less than a thousand euros hides a blow with the sponge on unpaid car fines until 2016. Unpaid fines for a value of about one billion, certify a study by the CGIA of Mestre that photographs the situation at 2017, when the total value of the fines imposed was equal to 2.6 billion, of which only 40.8% collected, 32% in the south and 33% in the center, the two areas of the country that would therefore benefit most from amnesty. But the value of the folders between interest and penalties would be almost double. Touching the two billion. That with the amnesty of the tax bills being studied in view of the maneuver, the Government could completely discount, also because, as the Deputy Minister of Economy and economic manager of FdI recalled, “the collection costs are greater than their amount”. Not to mention the fact that since we are dealing with millions of files, almost always uncollectible, the attempt to proceed with collection as well as producing very poor results ends up flooding the tax collection machine.

The last major amnesty of the fines is the one that has remedied the situation up to those imposed in 2010. Now it would cover the next six years, stopping in 2016. From then to now, the road penalties should actually be prescribed since the fateful 5 years. But as the tax attorney Gianluca Timpone explains, “this is often not the case. Because if it is believed that the fine has not been notified or that the terms leading to its prescription have expired, all this must be contested, otherwise it is necessary to assert one’s rights in court before the justice of the peace ”. With legal fees that almost always exceed the amounts owed. However, these often end up doubling the initial cost of the fine, which when it ends up in a tax bill is also burdened by a penalty equal to 50% of the amount and interest that travels every six months at the rate of 8% per year.

The most drastic solution to the study is to forgive all the folders with a value of less than one thousand euros, which would be automatically canceled by the tax administration, without the taxpayer requesting it. If the operation were too burdensome for the state coffers, it could proceed by throwing away only penalties and interest, which double the cost of the oldest fines. However, it will be worthwhile to reconcile.