Land registry reform coming

The Italian cadastre is the inventory of real estate present in the territory of the State. It is a register that has a long tradition and for this reason there is a strong need for its adaptation to the changes that have affected the economic and social fabric. 

This is because the cadastral estimates are fixed in their definition at 1939 and in their determination at 1991.

An attempt at reform was made with the enabling law 23/2014, but unfortunately it remained incomplete and was only partially implemented in Legislative Decree 198/2014.

Also in light of the numerous legislative proposals on the subject, a reform of the land register aimed at simplifying and relaunching the construction sector has become desirable. For this reason, a special bicameral commission to supervise the tax registry was established and completed its work at the end of January 2020.

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 Reform of the land register: the proposals of the Supervisory Commission 

The Commission assessed the opportunity of a reform of real estate taxation with a view to fairness, simplification and relaunching the sector. It will now be the Government, engaged in preparing the tax reform, to evaluate the extensive and detailed guidelines offered by the Supervisory Commission so that a reform of the Italian land register can be implemented.

The Commission started from an "obsolescence of the cadastral appraisal system", which is no longer adequate for the current context, which is very different from the past.

The objective is to achieve greater equity while keeping the overall tax levy unchanged. To do this, it is considered appropriate to proceed with gradual interventions and also provide for direct involvement of the citizen.

Integrated real estate registry

The Commission underlines the importance of completing the alignment of cadastral data, making adequate resources available to the Revenue Agency which is completing the integrated real estate register project.

The final objective is to arrive at a "property tax register" that puts the existing databases of the various institutions online, which currently have little communication with each other.

From rooms to square metres

In the framework of the reform outlined by the Commission, the passage of the consistency from room to square meter is considered fundamental. In general, it is considered necessary to fully implement the art. 3 of Presidential Decree 138/98, defining the cadastral square meter as the unit of measurement instead of the current three units of consistency (space, m2 and m3).

Furthermore, the text aims to overcome the exclusively statistical criterion in the definition of the income of the hypothesis of revision of the cadastral estimate system formulated by the enabling law of 2014.

Dry coupon also for shops

As for other measures on real estate taxation, the Commission shows its appreciation for some initiatives aimed at the redevelopment of real estate assets including, for example, the rule governing tax breaks for the purchase of existing buildings by companies, the facade bonus, the full deductibility of the IMU on buildings instrumental to business activity.

However, it is hoped that these measures will stabilize, as this could push the revival of the real estate sector. In this regard, we also underline the opportunity to extend the flat tax regime, not only to shops, but also to homes, commercial properties, municipalities not with high housing tension as well as to all types of rental, including "transitional" ones.

Simplification and precompiled IMU

As regards the topic of simplification, despite some positive interventions (such as the merging of IMU and TASI), it is highlighted that the obligations and rates with which the taxpayer is forced to deal still appear excessive.

Once the structural reforms relating to full knowledge of property data have been completed, the idea under study would be to arrive at a pre-compiled IMU which, as has already happened for the income of natural persons, can achieve the aim, for the Revenue Agency and for the municipalities, of being able to count on certain and collectable income and for citizens to represent a minor source of bureaucracy.

Building drawer

It would also be plausible, from a perspective of complete operation and interface of the databases, integrated with a direct contribution from citizens who own property, to obtain, on the one hand, full operational availability of the so-called "building drawer" which can be easily consulted for every need, and on the other to eliminate most of the distortions in the system which today make the cadastral value absolutely incomparable with the actual price of the properties.