The Menichetti Law Firm assisted an important Milanese company in a dispute against INPS and Equitalia (tax and social security/pension agencies) concerning the long-standing issue of the prescription of non-contested tax bills in accordance with the law.
The Court of Appeal of Milan with sentence no. 1677/2017 published on 25.09.2017, accepting the appeal requested by our attorneys, declared the credit stated on a non-contested tax letter from the revenue office to be prescribed, although not challenged in terms of the law, adhering to the principle, also enshrined in the recent ruling by the Italian Supreme Court in Joint Sections n. 23397/16, according to which: "the expiry of the peremptory period established to oppose or challenge a tax collection notice by the proper channels or in any case of coercive collection only produces the substantial effect of the no- collectability of the credit but does not also determine the effect of the so-called "conversion" of the short limitation period that may be envisaged in the ordinary ten-year period, pursuant to art. 2953 civil code. ... This principle applies to all the acts – appropriately named - of collection through the proper channels or in any case of coercive collection of credits from social security institutions or receivables related to State, tax and extra-tax revenues, as well as receivables of the Regions, Provinces, Municipalities and other local authorities as well as administrative penalties for the violation of tax or administrative laws and so on. With the consequence that, if for the relative credits there is a (substantial) prescription shorter than the ordinary one, the only expiry of the term granted to the debtor to challenge, does not allow him to apply the art. 2953 of the civil code, except in the presence of a judicial decision that has become definitive.” (AL)
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