The recent judgment no. 7525 of the Supreme Court ruled on the prerequisites to #seizure aimed at #forfeiture pursuant to art. 12bis of legislative decree 74/2000.
The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court against the order of seizure by the Court to confiscate the amount of € 77,000, deemed to result from illegal gains of omitted tax return. In particular, the Judicial Review Court stated that the problem of exceeding the punishability threshold provided for by art. 5 in leg. decree 74/2000 “should have been examined in the course of subsequent investigations”.
However, in assessing the application of the measure, the Supreme Court argued that the judge is required to verify the existence of “concrete circumstantial evidence“, with the result that the presence of sufficient elements, albeit circumstantial, must be recognized to charge a suspect with an offence.
The Court therefore concludes by stating that the Judicial Review Court, in order to be able to legitimately order the seizure aimed at confiscating the illegal gain derived from failing to declare, should have indicated “the amount of the probable tax evaded, and therefore the degree of exceeded punishability threshold referred to in art. 5 d. lgs. 74/2000, albeit within the terms of an interlocutory stage, through all the necessary checks, possibly through recourse to presumption of fact.”
Marialaura Brancato, Atty.