NOTIFICATION: TAX CERTIFICATION
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Antitrust points out that the introduction of qualification specific certification for tax returns would create a ‘private reserve’ for a limited number of professionals.
Basing itself on Art. 22 of Law No. 287/90, the Italian Antitrust Authority has sent Parliament and the Government a notification to encourage them to revise the draft of the legislative decree for the reform of the tax assistence sector, which underwent a preliminary deliberation in the Council of Ministers on 27th November 1998 and which is to come into force on 1st January 1999.
Among the regulations contained in the draft of the legislative decree which is being approved one finds, among other things, the introduction of tax certification or 'visto pesante', a tool meant to attest to and monitor the correctness of tax returns. This certification may be affixed to the tax returns of subjects who own companies using the ordinary accounting regime. The professionals who will be allowed to affix this certification are the qualified accountants enroled in the Registers of Qualified Accountants, Accountants and Commercial Experts and those work consultants who have been working in the area for at least five years. Aside from these conditions, the professional is further requested to have been the accountant who kept the company's accounts for the fiscal period of the certification.
In the Authority's opinion, the regulations contained in the draft of the legislative decree which was examined appear the framework of a new activity, that of fiscal certification, which will be carried out by part of the professionals enroled in the registers.
The Authority would not be questioning the delicacy of the function of fiscal certification amply clarified by the legislative decree were it not for the fact that the professional is being called to substitute the Public Administration in its role of checking tax returns. That the Public Administration would need to establish qualitative criteria for those it chooses as certifiers is entirely understandable. However, the indirect extention added to the "private reserve" of the certifiers, that they must have handled the company's accounting for the entire year before they can affix the certification, by the legislative decree, appears unjusifiably restrictive of the competition.
As to this, the Authority would like to point out that currently the activity of keeping the account books can be carried out by anyone, also directly by the company. Thus, the more companies decide to use this certification, the more the whole sector will become a monopoly in favour of the professional figures identified by the decree under examination.
The Authority would like to further mention that, though indirect, the effect of a reserve of this type would be to significantly reduce the offer of services for keeping account books. The request by those companies which wish to take advantage of this certification, could in fact be satisfied by no more than 40% of the members enroled in the three Registers. So a contraction of the offer would further weigh on the market because of the requirement that the only professionals able to affix the fiscal certification are those who have exercised their profession for not less than five years, a measure which would inevitably penalize younger professionals.