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taxpayer as well as to (ii) an annual closing meeting
(at the end of each tax year) for the purpose of review.
With respect to IRA’s positions on the taxpayer’s
specific circumstances examined during application
of the regime, they shall in principle be incorporated
in writing in reasoned opinions or equivalent
documents.
Where however such circumstances relate to issues
of strategic importance for the taxpayer a binding
Cooperative Compliance Agreement should be
concluded by both parties to the relation. In any case,
it is specified that for questions within the scope of
advance pricing agreements (APAs), the taxpayer may
also activate the respective specific procedure.
Further on, it is clarified that admission to the regime
is no panacea but any specific taxpayer might lose the
benefits therefrom in certain cases. Specifically, IRA is
entitled to revoke an established cooperative relation,
where the taxpayer no more fulfills the requirements
for admission or violates his obligations thereunder.
It is worth noting that the regime is only in its first
phase of application which shall last until the end of
2019; hence, in principle, it is only available to large
taxpayers, i.e. enterprises with annual turnover equal
to at least € 10 billion. It follows that during such first
phase, taxpayers fulfilling this condition and admitted
to the regime that subsequently fail to realize the
above turnover for 3 consecutive tax years shall be
excluded therefrom.
There is no question that cooperative compliance is
the sole way forward to construct fair and efficient
tax systems. The Italian regime seems very promising.
Hopefully, Italian practice will prove up to it.
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