CRYPTOCURRENCIES: FROM 2022 THE FINANCIAL POLICE WILL CROSS-REFERENCE DATA

The decree of January 13, 2022, of the Ministry of Economy and Finance – concerning the methods and deadline (by May 18, 2022) by which professional providers of services relating to the use of virtual currency (cryptocurrency) and professional providers of digital wallet services are required to communicate their operations on the national territory, as well as the forms of cooperation between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the police and finance forces – has been published in the Official Gazette.

The provisions of the Ministerial Decree of January 13, 2022 will have the effect of encouraging the filing of the RW framework by the holders of cryptocurrencies, given the possibility for the police forces – more specifically, for the “Guardia di Finanza”, the Financial Police – to verify their compliance with the expected tax monitoring obligations by cross-referencing the data relating to their tax returns with the data acquired by the OAM (the Italian Body of financial agents and credit brokers).

It is worthwhile to recall the position of the Italian Tax Authority in response to Ruling no. 788/2021: “For all the virtual currencies held by the petitioner, i.e., also for those of which he/she directly holds the private key, there is the obligation of fiscal monitoring pursuant to Legislative Decree no. 167/1990 and, consequently, the petitioner is required to complete the RW framework of the Income Form PF 2021”.

With this decree, issued pursuant to art. 17-bis, paragraph 8-ter, Legislative Decree no. 141 of August 13, 2010, the following have been established:

• the methods and timing with which the professional providers of services relating to the use of virtual currency (so-called virtual currency – cryptocurrency – exchangers) and the professional providers of digital wallet services (so-called wallet providers) are required to communicate to OAM their operations on the national territory for the purposes of registration in the special section, as from its entry into force (from  May 18, 2022), of the digital public register of moneychangers held by the OAM itself, an essential condition for the legal exercise of the activity in Italy, also online, by the aforesaid providers;
• the transmission to the OAM, by the aforesaid professional providers, digitally and on a quarterly basis, of the data relating to the transactions carried out by them in Italy, i.e., the identification data of the client and the summary data relating to their overall operations for each client;
• the possibility for the Special Currency Police Unit of the “Guardia di Finanza” and for the police forces referred to in art. 16, paragraph 1, Law no. 12162 of April 1, 1981, to request to the OAM the data and information relating to the aforesaid service providers as well as the data relating to the transactions carried out, communicated to the OAM.