Starting from 2024, the Revenue Administration will be able to access Italians’ current accounts more easily and possibly seize their debts. The fact that the rule was foreseen in the text of the budget draft approved by the Council of Ministers caused a lot of controversy. But in the days before the passage from Palazzo Chigi to Parliament, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni published a message on his social profiles: “Announcement to sailors: THERE IS NO measure in the budget law that will allow direct access of Agency Revenues will close the current accounts of Italians to recover unpaid taxes. Do not follow rumors or unofficial documents “I advise you not to fall.” In reality, in many respects this is not the case.
It should also be said that Meloni has always opposed similar measures, which he describes as “Fiscal Big Brother”. Let’s see how access to current accounts and related sequestration works before and after the Meloni government’s budget law.
How does bank account garnishment work?
For several years, the Revenue Administration has been able to seize a current account. The rule regulating this is included in the Presidential Decree dated September 29, 1973. 602, article 72 bis “Provisions regarding the collection of income taxes”. “Except for retirement loans” […] The seizure of the debtor’s receivables against third parties may include an order for the third party to pay the loan directly to the seller, up to the amount of the loan for which the transaction was made:
- Within sixty days from the notification of seizure, for amounts accrued the right to collect before the notification date;
- For outstanding amounts within the relevant deadlines.
Therefore, it was already envisaged that the amounts would be withdrawn from the current accounts or from the entire account. The changes brought by the government budget law are related to procedures.
Access to current accounts after Meloni’s 2024 budget
Contrary to what Meloni stated, in the bill sent by the government to the Parliament there is a rule that changes the rules on access to current accounts for tax purposes and is no longer restrictive, on the contrary. In the 13th paragraph of Article 23 of the text of the maneuver we read: “In order to ensure the maximum efficiency of the collection activity, the simplification and acceleration of the same activity, as well as the prevention of the danger of tax evasion behavior. The debtor shall, before starting the compulsory collection action, take all necessary measures for the above-mentioned purpose.” can leverage telematics application collaboration methods and IT tools to extract information from anyone held.”
The Meloni government’s budget law therefore wants to make collection activity more efficient by “simplifying and accelerating” it, thanks to “IT tools” that will obtain “all the necessary information” to seize the amounts owed from current accounts. As can be seen in the text taken from different versions of the budget bill, the text has actually changed compared to the original version: the term “seizure of current accounts” has disappeared and has been replaced by the more general term “forced bailout”. if it does not change, the regulatory reference is always to the recovery of sums by the Internal Revenue Service.
The explanatory report appended to the text of the maneuver confirms the strengthening of the Agency’s action: “The rule in question will allow the use of the operational capacity of the collection agency, directing it in a timely and targeted manner, effectively satisfying the recipients in the recovery of the collection case”, underlining this “In other words, with the same number of collection cases, especially taking into account the movable enforcement case and especially the enforcement case against third parties (already carried out in accordance with the existing legislation), more successful results will be guaranteed, while at the same time, no collection action will be taken at the beginning.” It may also be possible to reduce the situations in which the debtor is contacted unnecessarily through procedures without any expectation.
The white paper includes the financial impacts of the measure: The government expects to achieve 1 billion euros between 2025 and 2026; this amount has been reduced to around 700 million euros as a precautionary measure while waiting for the mechanism to be formulated. Of course, starting from next year, access to current accounts will become easier in case of possible seizures, this is the will of the government.
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There are other details that are certainly overshadowed in the new budget law, but are no less important. Here they are listed in the special section of Today.it for the 2024 maneuver.
Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
