Italy can now assess VAT automatically when the annual return is never filed

What changed in detail

The Director of Italy’s Agenzia delle Entrate issued Provvedimento Prot. n. 239129/2026 on 28 August 2026, laying down implementing rules for Article 54-bis.1 of Presidential Decree No. 633/1972, inserted by Article 1, comma 111, lettera a) of Law No. 199 of 30 December 2025. It authorises the Agency, where the annual VAT return has been omitted, to determine the tax owed including by automated procedures, on the basis of electronic invoices issued and received, electronic daily receipts transmitted and elements drawn from periodic VAT settlement communications, net of any payments already made by the taxpayer, within the deadline of 31 December of the seventh year following the year in which the return should have been filed. Interest is charged at 4 per cent annually and an administrative penalty of 120 per cent of the tax applies, reduced to one third with interest at 3.5 per cent where the taxpayer pays within 60 days of notice.

What it means

This is a shift from record-keeping to enforcement. E-invoice and corrispettivi data have been collected for years as a reporting archive; Provvedimento 239129/2026 turns that same archive into the basis for an assessment the Agency can raise on its own initiative once a return goes missing, without waiting for a manual audit. The financial exposure is real — a 120 per cent penalty and 4 per cent annual interest on top of the assessed tax, cut to a third with interest at 3.5 per cent only if paid within 60 days of the notice. Because the assessment window runs to 31 December of the seventh year after the return was due, a single omitted return stays open to this mechanism for years, not just through the following filing season.