FINANCIAL & TAX INCENTIVES IN ITALY

As of 2015 a tax-credit benefit has been introduced for any research & development (“R&D”) investment activi- ties carried out by companies, starting from the fiscal year following that ending 31 December 2014 and until the fiscal year ending 31 December 2020.

Such benefit is given to all companies irrespectively from their legal status, their economic sector or accounting regime.This tax-benefit is payable under condition that, during the fiscal year in which taxpayers intend to take advan- tage of the tax-credit, at least € 30,000 of R&D costs are incurred.
The main characteristic(s)/requirement(s) of the above specified R&D credit are the following:
• facilitate incremental R&D investments in respect to the supported average-costs during the period 2012-2014;
• facilitate personnel investments, “extra muros”, industrial sole right, equipment and laboratory tools;
• tax rate to determine to R&D tax-credit equal to 50%;
• maximum yearly amount of the tax-credit equal to MLN/€ 20 per taxpayer;
• credit to be used only to offset payments and starting from the fiscal year following that in which it was recognized.
Moreover, the benefit is:
• supplied as an automatic credit (subject to possible future verification); and
• subject to a certification if there is no accounting supervision (if the certification is needed, a further amount of € 5,000 is given for such activity).