Last budget law (number 148/2018) has anchored the launch of the Italian Web Tax to a very precise timing, linked to the issue (by April 30th, precisely) of a series of measures.
In particular, a decree of the MEF in order to establish «the provisions for implementing the digital services tax “.
At the end of all this, and within 60 days of the Mef / Mise decree, the Italian Web Tax will become operational.
Actually the Mef / Mise decree has not yet been issued.
So, at best, the web tax would have started in the second half of the 2019, now any forecast appears to be risky and the possibility of another false start is far from being remote, as already happened with the rule set forth in previous year’s budget law (205/2017).
The tax on digital services designed last winter in some ways is in line with the work of the European Commission merged into the proposed directive of 21 March 2018. From a subjective point of view, the first condition for the application is identified in the exercise of a business activity.
It is also necessary to overcome, during the calendar year, a double threshold of revenues: the total amount, that is “global” of those realized (not less than 750 million euros) and the total revenues deriving from “digital media services »obtained in the italian territory, which must not be less than 5.5 million euros. The exceeding of the thresholds also takes place at the group level.
At the same time as these two conditions occur, the tax affects both non-resident companies and those resident in Italy, regardless of the nature of the customers, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer revenues.
The Italian web tax, as it was structured, affects all three areas of the digital economy, from e-commerce to multi-sided platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, Foodora, Blablacar, but also activities by Over the top, or the big web portals like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. In this case, users access the website for free, but in return they give the portals valuable personal information that is the new added value of the digital economy.