A brief excursus on some interesting new tax regulations, prepared by our colleague Federica Bucci, a lawyer specialising in tax law, with whom our firm has the pleasure of collaborating:
Patent Box: up to 110% deduction of research and development costs
Article 6 of Legislative Decree No. 146/2021, as amended by the Budget Law 2022, repealed the old Patent Box regime and introduced a maximum deduction from business income for the costs incurred in research and development activities in relation to software protected by copyright, industrial patents, designs and models, consisting of an increase of the deduction up to 110% of such costs.
Subjects who choose this regime are entitled to obtain adequate documentation which has the function of excluding the application of penalties in case of disallowance of the deduction by the Revenue Agency (so-called penalty protection). Such documentation must be prepared in accordance with the specific provisions of the Director of the Revenue Agency to be issued in the coming months.
The amendments made by the Budget Law have determined that the new regime can be cumulated with the tax credit for the expenses for research and development under Article 1, paragraphs 198 et seq. of Law 160/2019.
Tax credit for research and development tax credit and possible regularisation
Still on the question of IP, the tax credit for research and development activities has been extended and the amount has been reshaped, providing for different percentages and thresholds compared to those in force until now.
In addition, taxpayers who have already used the tax credit for research and development activities accrued until 2019 will have the opportunity to regularise their position by spontaneously reimbursing the amount used, without the application of interest and penalties (which, in this case, are generally applied to the extent of 100% of the credit).
For the regularisation is required that the taxpayer has doubts as to the correct application of the regulation (and therefore the correct use of the credit) and wishes to avoid disputes on this point, or wishes to use this tool to settle any disputes that may have arisen in the meantime and that have not yet become final.
Consequently, since the procedures for submitting the request for regularisation will be established in a measure that has not yet been issued, the taxpayer who receives in the meantime a notice of recovery of the tax credit and who intends to avail for the regularisation will have to challenge the notice of recovery as a precautionary measure in order to prevent it from becoming final.
