(Jamma) The Privacy Guarantor has linked his go-ahead to the income meter to a series of measures that must make it compliant with the privacy legislation. These interventions are necessary to correct "the numerous critical profiles" that have emerged. In short, there are several aspects of the instrument developed by the Revenue Agency that need to be reviewed. These include the determination of an 'average' expense for games and lotteries when there is no reliable data indicating the amount.
CERTAIN EXPENSES: The taxpayer's income can be reconstructed using only certain expenses and expenses that value certain elements (possession of goods or use of services and relative maintenance) without using presumed expenses based solely on the Istat average.
ISTAT AVERAGE EXPENSES: Istat average expenditure data cannot be used to determine the amount of split and recurring expenditure for which the tax authorities do not have certain evidence. In fact, these data, referable to the average family consumption standard, cannot be correctly traced back to any individual, except with considerable excess or defect margins of error.
The profiling of the taxpayer - provided for by the legislator solely for the purpose of determining by induction the probable content of elements indicative of certain taxpayer's ability to pay (for example, the possession of cars or boats) - is therefore extended by the decree also to the presumed existence of the elements themselves (for example, hotels, guest houses and package tours).
Where there is no evidence of certain expenses resulting from data available or present in the tax register, for numerous expense items envisaged in the reference table, each taxpayer is in fact attributed the amount of the average Istat expense of the geographical area and household belonging to quantify the estimated expenditure for, for example, "trams, buses, taxis and other transport", "games and toys, radio, television, hi-fi, computers, non-scholastic books, newspapers and magazines, records, stationery, radio, television and internet subscriptions, lotto and lotteries, plants and flowers, radio repairs, television, computer tax", "barber, hairdresser and beauty institutes". This, even in cases where the amount of Istat expenditure is higher than the certain amount available to the Revenue Agency.
For these items of expenditure, the Istat average values are used by the decree not only to quantify an element of ability to pay attributable to the taxpayer, but also to presumptively attribute to him items of expenditure not anchored to any certain data, relating to the acquisition of goods or services and their maintenance.
