The first investigations launched on the avoidance of the tax for 2016, but this is only the beginning. And due to a mistake, a thousand Tari bulletins were sent late. The Municipality: no to sanctions
Genoa – A rain of thousands of assessment notices relating to the 2016 Imu is arriving in the homes of the Genoese and, except for corrections at the government level, it is only the appetizer: three thousand families where the spouses have split their residence between an apartment in the city and a second home on the Riviera or in the countryside (thus accessing the exemption of the property tax) will also be required to pay arrears for the entire last five years. Explanation? According to a sensational order of the Supreme Court, if the husband and wife appear to reside in different municipalities, neither of them has the right to cancel the Imu prima casa.
And this time, together with the crafty tax, they are overwhelmed by the avalanche even people in absolute good faith. “Alongside those who have taken advantage of the rules to evade the tax authorities, there are paradoxical situations – says the lawyer Emanuela Siffredi of the Montecucco-Siffredi firm, the first to raise the case – The most common is that relating to spouses separated for years that have not never got to divorce and believed they had left the burden of a broken relationship behind them, but we got to the extreme case of a mother who, in order to be close to her handicapped child and forced to stay outside Genoa, rented a small apartment where he has placed his residence and now finds himself paying arrears for his only home ».
Tursi: forced to ask for the bill
The starting point is that the “splitting of the family nucleus” (legal definition to photograph the status of many couples who do not have the same residence, for an infinite number of reasons) was until yesterday accepted by the Ministry of Finance without problems: couples who own two houses in the same municipal area simply had to choose which apartment to use the exemption for: on one you pay, on the other you don’t. AND, similarly, the same criterion was also applied in the case of two apartments in two different municipalities. Both options were suggested by many accountants and accepted without objection by thousands of people. Then, from November 2020 to last summer, three Supreme Court orders followed one another which gave a much more restrictive interpretation limited to the case of the different Municipalities: the concessions are intended for the “family unit” residing in a specific apartment chosen as the first home ; therefore – taking the law literally – if instead of the “family unit” there are two people who live in two different apartments in two different municipalities, the Imu exemption lapses for both. “Until last June we followed the indications of the Ministry of Finance which gave a more favorable interpretation to taxpayers – explains the commissioner Pietro Piciocchi – if the law authorizes double residence within the same Municipality, with the only constraint of having to choose which house to use the Imu exemption , why shouldn’t the same principle apply if one spouse lives in Genoa and the other in Torriglia or Santa Margherita or maybe in Milan where he works? I personally went to the Department of Finance in Rome to support this position and I was heard, the latest tax decree 2021 specified that from this year it will always be possible, regardless of whether we are talking about a single municipality or two different municipalities, choose which house to pay the IMU for and which not. But all this has no retroactive value ».
Thus, in the face of repeated orders of the Supreme Court, the Municipality of Genoa has decided to adapt “following the provisions of the Supreme Court, in order to avoid being called by the Court of Auditors to refund a tax damage ». And he proceeded to send the assessments and requests for back payments: for now only relating to 2016 – an annuity which, if the documents were not notified to the interested parties by 31 December, would become barred – but at present it seems inevitable. that the Municipality knocks on the door also for the following four years. And the final bill for many will be very high, the issue is not just economic. For someone there is also the defense of marriage which, from a fiscal point of view, can be an own goal. Still the lawyer Siffredi: “The Tax Commission of the Liguria Region has already referred the question to the Constitutional Court, stressing that the interpretation adopted discriminates against marriages with respect to civil unions and unmarried couples, heterosexual or homosexual, in which both components could benefit from the tax benefit. But the consultation times are long, while those who have received the IMU notice, in order to present the reasons justifying the non-payment, must in any case oppose within 60 days. Otherwise, whatever happens, the practice will go on. ” And interests will also trigger: three thousand Genoese families are warned.
Meanwhile, a thousand other families are receiving the Tari bulletins. They were sent late, you will have to pay but obviously without delay.
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