Student guide Faculty of Law A.Y. 2010/11

The course gives students an overview, within a framework of essential constitutional principles, of the substantive and procedural rules that govern the principal taxes relevantto business activities: income tax and  value-added tax.

The part of the course devoted to the substantive aspects will chiefly emphasise corporate income, looking at the general and specific rules for its determination.

In the part devoted to procedural aspects, an examination of the role and content of the various practical stages of taxation (tax declaration, notice of assessment, collection functions), as well as of the Tax Authority's powers of investigation, will be followed by an illustration of tax court process.

The teaching approach is designed to develop students' ability to identify and reason about problems, also through discussions of case studies drawn from the decisions of the courts and from ministerial circulars.

General section

 

1.  Concept of taxation and its subdivisions.

2.  The constitutional principles of legality and ability to pay.

3.  Premises of taxation.

4.  Passive subjects.

5.  Tax subjects andauthorities.

6.  Tax declaration.

7.  Powers of investigation.

8.  Notice of assessment.

9.  Collection.

10.       Tax penalties.

11.       Jurisdictional protection

 

Special section

 

1.  National personal income tax.

1.1  Premises and passive subjects.

1.2  Determination of the income base and payment of the tax.

1.3  Corporate income: source; Income tax return and financial statements; general rules for the allocation of revenue items over time; assets of the firm and determination of their cost; positive components; general rules pertaining to negative components; negative components; valuation of inventory, valuation of supplies and services and works having multi-year duration; valuation of securities.

1.4  Other categories of income: property income; capital income; income from subordinate employment, income from self-employment and sundry income.

 

2.  Corporate income tax

2.1  Premises and passive subjects;

2.2   Subjective categories and determination of the income base.

2.3  Subjective categories and payment of the tax.

 

3.  VAT.

3.1  Premises: objective, subjective and geographical profile of taxable transactions; allocation of taxable transactions over time.

3.2  Non taxable transactions and exempted transactions.

3.3  Mechanism of application: formal obligations; settlement; payments; statements.

There will be an oral examination at the end of the course.

The recommended text for preparing the exam is:

Falsitta, G., Corso istituzionale di diritto tributario, Cedam, Padova, 2007.

For the general section: cap. 2; cap. 3; cap. 6; cap. 9; cap. 10; cap. 11; cap. 13; cap. 14; cap. 15, sez. I, II e III; cap. 16; cap. 19; cap. 20, sez. I; cap. 21.

For the special section: cap. 23; cap. 24; cap. 25, sez. I; cap. 26.

 

Students may also use other books, subject to the prior approval of the lecturers.

 

In addition, both to prepare for the exam and to get the most out of the lectures, students are advised to purchase an up-to-date tax code.

For example:

Falsitta, G., Fantozzi, A., Le leggi tributarie fondamentali, Giuffrè, Milano, ultima edizione.