Electronic Receipt: What's New

There are sanctions for those who do not respect the electronic receipts

Obviously, violators will not go unpunished. In fact, what we have just analyzed is an extension, but all traders who do not comply with its expiration, thus refusing to send the data to the Revenue Agency, may suffer fines ranging from €500 to €2,000.

The same applies to merchants who do not allow payment by cards (credit and debit cards), penalty: €30.

Electronic receipts and lottery

Among the new developments planned for 2020 in tax matters, there is also the so-called 'receipt lottery'; what is it?

Have we made you curious? Good, because by 'the receipt lottery' we mean participation in a lottery that allows you to win quite substantial prizes; we are talking about 3 weekly draw prizes worth €50,000, €20,000 and €1,000. Once a year there will be a draw worth 1 million euros.

How to participate?

Participating is very simple, just follow the following steps:

• Access your personal area on the Revenue Agency website and download the "lottery code"
• Provide the code to the merchant and confirm your participation at the time of purchase
• Every 10 cents spent by card gives you the right to a virtual ticket

Pharmacists and doctors will be excluded from the lottery until June 30, 2020.

If you are wondering what it is for, the answer is always the same: fighting tax evasion!In fact, tickets valid for winning the prizes up for grabs are collected exclusively through electronic payments.

Italy does not have exclusivity

This is not an entirely Italian novelty; there are precedents in other states, including China, Argentina, Brazil (only in the State of Sao Paulo), Colombia, Malta, Georgia, Slovakia, but above all the Portugal.

In fact, if each State can speak for itself, declaring whether or not it has been successful (this is the case of Slovakia, for example), we would like to say a few words about the situation in Portugal, which instead declared that the 'receipt lottery' allowed it to significantly reduce the tax evasion rate tax.

As with everything, however, there are those who argue that this is a totally wrong measure as it would stimulate gambling. Nonetheless, as far as the Italian case is concerned, if we probe souls a little, they are not all in favor, as most people consider it ineffective in our beautiful country.

As they say, time will prove us right. We'll see who comes out on top!

How it works and what changes are expected for traders, customers and the Financial Police

In order to make all commercial transactions traceable, each merchant will have to issue receipts that are no longer paper. In fact, in one of the points of the current legislation it is clarified that the transmission of data to the Revenue Agency is considered the new method of tax certification.

If these are the news on the traders side, let's see together what will change on the customers.

By no longer receiving the receipt, how can a customer certify that they have made the payment, especially in the case of exchanges and returns? To replace the paper document, the customer will be sent an email following the purchase (a bit like what happens in the case of online purchases), or a paper commercial document, however without any validity for tax purposes. And goodbye to sanctions in the absence of a receipt.

It follows, in fact, that any customer stopped for checks outside any commercial activity cannot suffer any sanction for not presenting receipts.

We also see that something is also changing in terms of controls by the Financial Police, who, as they can no longer apply fines to customers, will have to limit themselves to asking for the amount spent and verifying the veracity of his words with the trader (via the recorded electronic data).

Electronic receipts: let's take stock

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