Current accounts subject to controls: how to defend oneself against the tax authorities

With the new rules against tax evasion, the Inland Revenue has the right to check current accounts of all Italians who cannot promptly justify any movement made. The tax verification on the current account is requested by the tax authorities by directly consulting a database full of balances and movements of each individual account holder of any bank.

If it is not possible to find transactions on the account in the tax return or in 730, the Fisco triggers the assessment procedure and the subsequent penalties. But not all of us are evaders and we are proud to keep our privacy intact, and in this case the Italian law does not help the tax payers to defend themselves from the verification of the revenue agency.

Current accounts subject to controls: how to defend oneself against the tax authorities

Although our incomes are checked with the relative models compiled at the CAF or online, if you receive a transfer to the account without receiving a reply on 730 then the Art. 32, paragraph 1, number 2 of Presidential Decree 600/1973 and Art. 51, paragraph 2, number 2, of Presidential Decree 633/1972 allow the Inland Revenue to consider them income from tax evasion.

therefore, the tax payer must always prove his lawful provenance to defend himself and not taxable of the money credited to your current account. The cases in this case are two:

• That the money comes from tax-free operations like damages, a donation from a parent, a loan from a friend, and so on;
• That the money has already been taxed at the source before arriving on the account, such as a lottery or betting winnings.

The problem is that it is not enough to affirm or testify that the money credited is the result of a gift from a relative, and in the case of substantial figures, better to register a deed of gift or loan with the Revenue Agency or a Notary to provide an official date.

Although it seems absurd, on this point Italian jurisprudence was expressed in a contrasting manner, which in some cases has denied the work of the tax authorities, considering that the mere presence of credits on the account is not sufficient to start an assessment. On the contrary, the Supreme Court, with 4 sentences of 2018, has stated that the probative burden of legal transactions on the accounts is borne by the tax payers.