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I have a company in a neighbouring country of slovenia... If I don't declare VAT, I get around ~30 days of leeway between the remiders to fines from our tax au

I have a company in a neighbouring country of slovenia... If I don't declare VAT, I get around ~30 days of leeway between the remiders to fines from our tax authority. If I didn't pay them for a year, they'd close my company for good. How the hell are they "probing" for stuff that happened 7 years ago? What were they doing in the last 6.5 years? Does an italian mom and pop pasta restaurant get the same 7 year time period before they get probed for not paying VAT?

davidw 4y ago
> 7 year time period Bureaucracy in Italy can be very slow indeed. Not sure about this case in particular, but sometimes things take years to happen.
f6v 4y ago
Some backscratching was done to make someone look the other way. Now a new government wants to shake Meta to fill the treasury. Just one possible explanation.
Karliss 4y ago
Problem for the Italian pasta restaurant is that they don't have dozens of offices and subsidiaries across the world made with intention to make it more confusing for tax authorities to understand what's going on and decide what fraction of their business and income belongs to Italy.
Asdrubalini 4y ago
Efficiency is not a known concept here in Italy. There are people/companies who get fined for paying taxes, and other people/companies who don't get fined for not paying them. There is no presumption of innocence when dealing with italian tax authority. And things are super slow.
- qsort 4y ago
  Yeah the state of the country is just sad. And obviously like in every disfunctional company there are the usual gaslighting liars who insist it's just normal and it's like this everywhere. Pet theory: it's because not enough Italians speak English and Italy is the only place where Italian is a majority language. You end up with a culturally backwards country.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Is your pet theory limited to only Italian speakers, or is it the same for any language. Irrespective, as theories go - well, it sure is a theory.
riffraff 4y ago
Because this is not vat that was expected to be payed and they forgot, these are taxes on revenue that was hidden by people who do that for a job.
jaclaz 4y ago
It seems that the whole stuff is "debatable" (i.e. it is not a "plain" case of not having paid VAT), the input is seemingly coming from an EU organism, the Eppo: https://www.eppo.europa.eu/it https://www.eppo.europa.eu/it The theory (simplified) is the following (from what I can understand, most related news miss details): 1) each user when signing on the platform receives access in exchange for providing something (personal data) which Facebook/Instagram/Meta can later monetize (i.e. these data represent some value) 2) this is a form of barter and as such it is subject to VAT What has been done is (seemingly) that of calculating (somehow) this value in Euro and consider it as a tax base for applying VAT.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Isn't this "barter" something that Meta put in its end user contract to try to circumvent GDPR and now it is backfiring? Or am I off?
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    No, I don't think that this has anything to do with GDPR or data protection, this is merely an interpretation of the Tax code. It is well established that a commercial transaction made through a barter bears no difference against the same transaction made through exchange of money. The barter may be through exchange of goods or services. There is a by now historical sentence here in Italy about the organizers of a contest and a local newspaper[0]. Basically the newspaper published about the contest (not as a news article but rather as an ad, including the rules, forms and what not) and the contest organizers had on all their printed material (forms to sign in, posters, etc.) a note like "in cooperation with newspaper name". The Tax office considered this "exchange" as if it was two operations, one in which the newspaper sold publicity, and one in which they bought publicity on the contest material and it went through all the various courts until the Cassazione confirmed this approach. That was a case between two entities subject to VAT, in the case of citizens (not subject to VAT) and an entity subject to VAT (Meta in this case) the part subject to VAT should (in theory) emit an "auto-invoice" and declare the VAT on the value. (or at least this is how I understand the matter, probably there will be more details in the news in the next few days/weeks). [0] (in Italian): https://sentenze.laleggepertutti.it/sentenza/cassazione-civile-n-7947-del-21-03-2019 https://sentenze.laleggepertutti.it/sentenza/cassazione-civi...
nix23 4y ago
>How the hell are they "probing" for stuff that happened 7 years ago? Even if it's your neighbor, it's still Italy!! Something like that would never happen in another neighbor like Switzerland....no wait let me make another example...i meant Austria...oh wait...damn i stop here.

davidw 4y ago

> 7 year time period Bureaucracy in Italy can be very slow indeed. Not sure about this case in particular, but sometimes things take years to happen.

f6v 4y ago

Some backscratching was done to make someone look the other way. Now a new government wants to shake Meta to fill the treasury. Just one possible explanation.

Karliss 4y ago

Problem for the Italian pasta restaurant is that they don't have dozens of offices and subsidiaries across the world made with intention to make it more confusing for tax authorities to understand what's going on and decide what fraction of their business and income belongs to Italy.

Asdrubalini 4y ago

Efficiency is not a known concept here in Italy. There are people/companies who get fined for paying taxes, and other people/companies who don't get fined for not paying them. There is no presumption of innocence when dealing with italian tax authority. And things are super slow.

qsort 4y ago
Yeah the state of the country is just sad. And obviously like in every disfunctional company there are the usual gaslighting liars who insist it's just normal and it's like this everywhere. Pet theory: it's because not enough Italians speak English and Italy is the only place where Italian is a majority language. You end up with a culturally backwards country.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Is your pet theory limited to only Italian speakers, or is it the same for any language. Irrespective, as theories go - well, it sure is a theory.

riffraff 4y ago

Because this is not vat that was expected to be payed and they forgot, these are taxes on revenue that was hidden by people who do that for a job.

jaclaz 4y ago

It seems that the whole stuff is "debatable" (i.e. it is not a "plain" case of not having paid VAT), the input is seemingly coming from an EU organism, the Eppo: https://www.eppo.europa.eu/it https://www.eppo.europa.eu/it The theory (simplified) is the following (from what I can understand, most related news miss details): 1) each user when signing on the platform receives access in exchange for providing something (personal data) which Facebook/Instagram/Meta can later monetize (i.e. these data represent some value) 2) this is a form of barter and as such it is subject to VAT What has been done is (seemingly) that of calculating (somehow) this value in Euro and consider it as a tax base for applying VAT.

gpderetta 4y ago
Isn't this "barter" something that Meta put in its end user contract to try to circumvent GDPR and now it is backfiring? Or am I off?
- jaclaz 4y ago
  No, I don't think that this has anything to do with GDPR or data protection, this is merely an interpretation of the Tax code. It is well established that a commercial transaction made through a barter bears no difference against the same transaction made through exchange of money. The barter may be through exchange of goods or services. There is a by now historical sentence here in Italy about the organizers of a contest and a local newspaper[0]. Basically the newspaper published about the contest (not as a news article but rather as an ad, including the rules, forms and what not) and the contest organizers had on all their printed material (forms to sign in, posters, etc.) a note like "in cooperation with newspaper name". The Tax office considered this "exchange" as if it was two operations, one in which the newspaper sold publicity, and one in which they bought publicity on the contest material and it went through all the various courts until the Cassazione confirmed this approach. That was a case between two entities subject to VAT, in the case of citizens (not subject to VAT) and an entity subject to VAT (Meta in this case) the part subject to VAT should (in theory) emit an "auto-invoice" and declare the VAT on the value. (or at least this is how I understand the matter, probably there will be more details in the news in the next few days/weeks). [0] (in Italian): https://sentenze.laleggepertutti.it/sentenza/cassazione-civile-n-7947-del-21-03-2019 https://sentenze.laleggepertutti.it/sentenza/cassazione-civi...

nix23 4y ago

>How the hell are they "probing" for stuff that happened 7 years ago? Even if it's your neighbor, it's still Italy!! Something like that would never happen in another neighbor like Switzerland....no wait let me make another example...i meant Austria...oh wait...damn i stop here.