In the relationship between tax and business, based on self-determination of tax liability by enterprises, followed by an eventual assessment after years and based on a mainly documentary logic, credit losses have represented one of the most frequent and insidious examples for a long time. These are the typical interpretative disputes made on the annual tax return, which make it difficult to face within companies and hinder the management of businesses. Not even the numerous regulatory changes in recent years have put a stop on this topic. Creating new rules of law does not necessarily create legal certainty, but more often new uncertainty, in a circle that feeds itself if stable interpretative schemes and a system vision are lacking. After the 1973 reform it was clear the adoption – that was later transfused into the Income Tax Consolidated Act (“TUIR”) – of a concept of “capital loss”, symmetrical to that of “capital gain”, which led to the use of this classification for credit transfers and, for legal causes for the extinction of the credit (acts of dispositions against the same debtor or the prescription), contingent liabilities. With the latest regulatory changes, and years of disputes and uncertainties, both cases of prescription and the credit assignments and debt remissions related to the cancellation from the balance sheet have converged into the category of credit losses. However, the fact remains that the losses due to the material uncollectability of the credit are not acts of realisation, but always and in any case income elements connected to an economic evaluation of the credit, and do not affect its existence, which legally persists until an extinguishing event occurs, such as renunciation, assignment or prescription. These are therefore conceptually quite distinct hypotheses, which remain a point of reference for making the tax discipline work properly under different profiles, starting with the period allocation up to the connection with the corresponding accounting items. From an accounting point of view, both losses on receivables of modest entity and losses on receivables from debtors subject to insolvency procedures are in fact valuation components, and as such are recognized in the profit and loss account as depreciation. The credit losses for the balance sheet are instead those that depend not so much on a credit assessment, but generally on a legal event (e.g. transfer, transaction, debt write-off or prescription); hence also the different accounting representation through the movement of the item “Other operating expenses” in the profit and loss account, as a direct counter-entry to the receivable which in this way is reduced or zeroed. If, on the other hand, bad debt losses are classified as write-downs for accounting purposes, a series of coordination problems arise between accounting representation and tax discipline, often complex from a conceptual point of view and difficult to manage at the operational level. The article tries to outline a conceptual map in which insert the main issues and their practical consequences.
Nei rapporti fra Fisco e imprese, basati sull’autodeterminazione del tributo da parte delle imprese, seguita da un eventuale controllo improntato a logiche prevalentemente documentali e dopo anni di distanza, le perdite su crediti sono da lungo tempo uno degli esempi più frequenti e insidiosi. L’impresa può rendersi conto delle cattive condizioni economiche di un debitore, anche con qualche telefonata o con un rapporto dell’agente di zona, ma sono elementi probatori troppo deboli agli occhi dell’Autorità fiscale. D’altra parte, non è certo una soluzione soddisfacente obbli- gare i contribuenti a sostenere onerose spese di esazione, già in partenza ritenute irrecuperabili e sproporzionate rispetto all’ammontare del credito, solo per documentare fiscalmente la perdita. Sono le tipiche contestazioni interpretative fatte a partire dalla dichiarazione, che rendono difficile regolarsi all’interno delle aziende e ostacolano la gestione delle imprese. Neppure le ripetute modifiche normative degli ultimi anni hanno messo un punto fermo sull’argomento. Creare nuove regole legislative non crea del resto necessariamente certezza del diritto, ma spesso nuova incertezza, in un circolo che si autoalimenta se mancano stabili schemi interpretativi e una visione di sistema.
Crediti inesigibili, bilancio e fisco [Bad debits, financial statements and taxation]
francesco crovato
Primo
2020
Abstract
In the relationship between tax and business, based on self-determination of tax liability by enterprises, followed by an eventual assessment after years and based on a mainly documentary logic, credit losses have represented one of the most frequent and insidious examples for a long time. These are the typical interpretative disputes made on the annual tax return, which make it difficult to face within companies and hinder the management of businesses. Not even the numerous regulatory changes in recent years have put a stop on this topic. Creating new rules of law does not necessarily create legal certainty, but more often new uncertainty, in a circle that feeds itself if stable interpretative schemes and a system vision are lacking. After the 1973 reform it was clear the adoption – that was later transfused into the Income Tax Consolidated Act (“TUIR”) – of a concept of “capital loss”, symmetrical to that of “capital gain”, which led to the use of this classification for credit transfers and, for legal causes for the extinction of the credit (acts of dispositions against the same debtor or the prescription), contingent liabilities. With the latest regulatory changes, and years of disputes and uncertainties, both cases of prescription and the credit assignments and debt remissions related to the cancellation from the balance sheet have converged into the category of credit losses. However, the fact remains that the losses due to the material uncollectability of the credit are not acts of realisation, but always and in any case income elements connected to an economic evaluation of the credit, and do not affect its existence, which legally persists until an extinguishing event occurs, such as renunciation, assignment or prescription. These are therefore conceptually quite distinct hypotheses, which remain a point of reference for making the tax discipline work properly under different profiles, starting with the period allocation up to the connection with the corresponding accounting items. From an accounting point of view, both losses on receivables of modest entity and losses on receivables from debtors subject to insolvency procedures are in fact valuation components, and as such are recognized in the profit and loss account as depreciation. The credit losses for the balance sheet are instead those that depend not so much on a credit assessment, but generally on a legal event (e.g. transfer, transaction, debt write-off or prescription); hence also the different accounting representation through the movement of the item “Other operating expenses” in the profit and loss account, as a direct counter-entry to the receivable which in this way is reduced or zeroed. If, on the other hand, bad debt losses are classified as write-downs for accounting purposes, a series of coordination problems arise between accounting representation and tax discipline, often complex from a conceptual point of view and difficult to manage at the operational level. The article tries to outline a conceptual map in which insert the main issues and their practical consequences.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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