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Depreciation and amortisation: the assessment deadline runs from the first year

For assets and services purchased from the tax period current at 31 December 2027, the limitation period for negative income components with multi-year effect (deductible items spread over several tax years, such as depreciation) no longer runs separately for each year of deduction: it now runs from the return for the first year in which a portion of the item was deducted. This is set out in Article 22 of Legislative Decree No. 148 of 7 August 2026. The new anchor point, however, covers only defects that could already be detected at the time of purchase, and nothing changes for the past.

For assets and services purchased from the tax period current at 31 December 2027, the limitation period for negative income components with multi-year effect (deductible items spread over several tax years, such as depreciation) no longer runs separately for each year of deduction: it now runs from the return for the first year in which a portion of the item was deducted. This is set out in Article 22 of Legislative Decree No. 148 of 7 August 2026. The new anchor point, however, covers only defects that could already be detected at the time of purchase, and nothing changes for the past.

The new rule

Legislative Decree No. 148/2026 (Official Gazette No. 185 of 11 August 2026, Ordinary Supplement No. 30; in force since 12 August 2026) inserts two new paragraphs into Article 43 of Presidential Decree No. 600/1973. Paragraph 1-bis: for negative income components of business income with multi-year effect, “save for those relating to non-existent transactions”, the deadline now runs from the return for the period “in which a portion of those components was deducted for the first time”; once the assessment notice has been served, the ordinary rule in paragraph 1 applies again for the current period, the preceding period and the following periods.

Paragraph 1-ter: for depreciation instalments on tangible and intangible assets, and for instalments of expenses relating to more than one financial year, the new anchor point applies only to “defects detectable at the time the asset was purchased or the expense was incurred”.

Paragraph 2 replicates the same insertion in Article 293 of the consolidated act on tax compliance and assessment (Legislative Decree 141/2026), effective from 1 January 2027; paragraph 3 limits the rule to “assets and services purchased from the tax period current at 31 December 2027”.

The basic deadline remains that of Article 43, paragraph 1: 31 December of the fifth year following the year in which the return was filed; where no return was filed, or the return is void, 31 December of the seventh year following the year in which the return should have been filed (paragraph 2). On the VAT side, Article 57 of Presidential Decree 633/1972 is unchanged.

Contrast with the Joint Sections’ case law

The Court of Cassation, Sezioni Unite (the Court of Cassation sitting in joint session), judgment No. 8500 of 25 March 2021, had linked the limitation period to the return for each individual instalment, even where the challenge concerned the originating fact behind the component itself — extending the period open to review across the entire life of the depreciation plan.

Example, on the facts as declared: calendar-year tax period, an asset brought into use in 2027 (Article 102, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Income Tax Act, “TUIR”), ten financial years (2027-2036), disregarding the halving of the depreciation rate in the first year (Article 102, paragraph 2, TUIR). The first instalment is deducted in the return for 2027, filed in 2028: the original defect can be challenged until 31 December 2033. Under the 2021 criterion, the last instalment, deducted in the return for 2036 filed in 2037, extended the deadline to 31 December 2042. Both deadlines may be affected by Article 6-bis, paragraph 3, of Law 212/2000, which postpones them to the hundred-and-twentieth day after the deadline for comments on the draft assessment, where fewer than a hundred and twenty days separate the two deadlines. Where the tax period does not coincide with the calendar year, the “period current at 31 December 2027” may begin in 2026.

In practice

The professional responsible for the return and the administrative manager are both involved. Before filing the Redditi return for the 2027 tax period, a file documenting the first deduction should be created for every asset: the invoice, the contract, evidence that the asset was brought into use, and a note on its classification and depreciation rate.

This information must be reconciled with the register of depreciable assets (Article 16, Presidential Decree 600/1973), whose entries may be made in the inventory book or, for taxpayers under simplified accounting, in the VAT purchases register (Article 2, Presidential Decree 695/1996); taxpayers relying on the simplifications under Articles 12 and 13 of Presidential Decree 435/2001, for ordinary and simplified accounting respectively, must still be able to provide the same information required under Article 16 on request, in a systematic form.

The file must be kept for the entire life of the depreciation plan and, in any event, for the ten years set out in Article 2220 of the Civil Code, running from the last entry. It would be a mistake to stop at the deadline anchored to the first deduction: that deadline covers only defects detectable at the time of purchase, whereas the incorrect quantification of a single instalment (a depreciation rate wrongly applied in a single period, a missing pro-rata adjustment, a calculation error) and components relating to non-existent transactions remain open to assessment on the year of deduction concerned.

Two points, however, remain open. The boundary between a defect “detectable at the time of purchase” and a defect arising later is not defined by the rule. And paragraph 1-bis refers to multi-year components in general, while paragraph 3 anchors the new deadline to assets and services that have been “purchased”: for multi-year components that do not arise from a purchase — capitalised costs for work carried out in-house, or improvement expenditure on third-party assets — there is no textual anchor point. No official guidance has been issued on the point.

Frequently asked questions

Does the new starting point apply to depreciation already under way?

No. Article 22, paragraph 3, limits it to assets and services purchased from the tax period current at 31 December 2027. The rule says nothing about earlier assets: the criterion set out by the Court of Cassation, Joint Sections, in judgment No. 8500/2021 continues to apply.

Is the deadline shortened for non-existent transactions too?

No. Paragraph 1-bis excludes them from the new anchor point without setting a rule of its own: the criterion in Court of Cassation, Joint Sections, judgment No. 8500/2021, referring to each individual year of deduction, continues to apply.

What effect does an amended return have?

Paragraph 1-bis leaves Article 1, paragraph 640, letter b), of Law 190/2014 unaffected: for the items covered by the amendment, the deadlines run from the amended return.