Energy: forwarded to Parliament Authority’s 2014 Report on supervision of the Robin Hood tax application

Milan, January 13, 2015

Italian version

The Energy Authority forwarded to Parliament the Annual Report on supervisory work carried out in 2014 on the enforcement of the ban on passing the Robin Hood tax, the additional corporate income tax (IRES) borne by the operators of the energy sector.
In 2014 the work mainly involved the analysis on accounting supervised companies for the years 2011 and 2012. In particular, for 2011 the analysis focused on the 53 operators - from a total of 401 supervised for the year - that have provided the Authority with insufficient reasons to rule out a possible transfer; the individual positions will be further developed during 2015. The additional corporate income tax (IRES) paid by these companies amounted to around 192 million Euros and represents the maximum amount of a possible transfer of the tax.
With regard to the 387 operators controlled for the year 2012, in 51 cases there was a positive change in the margin of the prices charged, which foresees the sending of a request for motivation.

The Authority has not yet started individual proceedings because of the uncertainty linked to the absence of final decisions of the Administrative Judge who has indefinitely postponed (sine die) the decision on the correctness of the analysis methodology adopted in previous similar measures.

Furthermore, by Resolution 176/2014/E/Rht the Regulation on monitoring the ban on passing the corporate income tax (IRES) paid was adapted to the latest changes introduced by the legislator. During 2013 the number of operators subject to the additional corporate income tax has increased, where there remains an obligation to observe the ban from passing, establishing however that the supervision, started in 2013, concerns the firms with a turnover exceeding Euro 482 million (61 subjects based on initial tests) and investigations are initiated against a sample of these, fixed by the Authority to an extent not exceeding 20%.
Until the year 2012 the timely supervision of the Authority involved all stakeholders in the higher tax (around 450 operators per exercise) that have paid a total of (between years 2008-2012) an additional corporate income tax of approximately Euro 4.9 billion.

Even in the past year the supervisory activity was carried out in collaboration with the Special Market Protection Unit of the Guardia di Finanza (Tax Police); following the monitoring held it was possible, among other things, to recover a higher tax by the tax authorities of approximately Euro 600 000, which adds up to the more than Euro 6 million recovered in previous years.
Report 629/2014/I/rht is available on the website www.autorita.energia.it