Here's how the state can take your tax money

Can the State appropriate tax refunds? In fact, it is not uncommon for taxpayers to pay more taxes than they should during the year.
It happens, for example, to employees who have Irpef deductions directly on their paychecks.
Be careful, however, the IRPEF withheld from the pay slip is the gross one, i.e.
the one that does not take into account the charges and expenses that the individual is incurring in the tax year.
This is one of the reasons that in the vast majority of cases leads employees to receive a refund from the tax adjustment in their tax return.
The Irpef was paid during the year, month after month, withheld from the paycheck, but in the meantime the taxpayer incurred medical expenses, renovations, educational expenses for children and all those expenses which give the right to deductions (i.e.
a discount on Irpef).
read also Deductions 730/2024: the complete list of expenses that can be downloaded This translates into the reimbursement that is obtained from the presentation of the annual tax return where taxpayers see back the part of taxes paid in excess of those due.
However, if the taxpayer has tax debts, can the State withhold the refund due to pay off the debt? Let's find out what the legislation provides in this regard.
Can the State take a tax refund? In several countries it is foreseen that those who have a tax debt lose the right to receive a refund of excess taxes paid.
Not only that, the State can withhold the reimbursement money even if the taxpayer does not pay maintenance payments or fails to pay compensation for damages resulting from criminal and civil proceedings.
In short, if you have debts, your tax return refund is lost.
In Italy, how does it work? Can the State take the tax money paid and not provide reimbursement for the excess? Not exactly.
Let's start by saying that this type of "recovery" is called compensation and compensation also exists in Italy.
How does it work? Offsetting is nothing other than the use of the credit to pay other taxes or contributions and serves to reduce or eliminate the amount that the taxpayer should pay.
In Italy, however, compensation is not compulsory, i.e.
the administration cannot withhold any credits to pay off other debts, but the taxpayer must do it independently, using the F24 form.
read also Refund 730/2023, when is it blocked and what does the Revenue Agency control? Automatic recovery of debts by the State A provision that provided for the recovery of debts on taxpayer credits was foreseen for the 2022 Finance Law.
The objective of the provision was to definitively say goodbye to tax bills by using the 730 credits to pay fines or other unpaid taxes or duties.
It should be underlined that in Italy the collection of debts and the repayment of credits have always followed different paths: the introduction of this rule, however, would have ensured that the two paths met, allowing the tax authorities to recover the amount due in automatic on any credits to be repaid.
The intent was to modify article 28 ter of the Consolidated Tax Collection Act to provide for automatic compensation between pending charges and accrued tax credits.
Article 28 ter in question provides, in fact, that in the case of pending debts registered in the register, if the taxpayer is entitled to reimbursements "the collection agent will notify the interested party of a proposal for compensation between the tax credit and the debt registered, suspending the recovery action and inviting the debtor to communicate within sixty days whether he intends to accept this proposal." .
In the end, the 2022 maneuver did not make any changes to the way debts are collected and this means that forced compensation is not foreseen in Italy.
Debts can be paid with any credits only if the taxpayer agrees, otherwise the taxpayer will receive the credit due and the collection agent will have to recover the debt in another way.