VAT Compliance in Italy

Studio Steduto offers specialized VAT compliance services to operate in Italy by doing all VAT duties on your behalf.

Once VAT registered in Italy, you are able to use the distance selling rules to sell directly to customers in Italy or other EU countries. This way you can leverage the distance selling rules to gain a customer base across the EU while keeping the cost of compliance down. For example, you can sell your products from Italy to a customer in France without VAT registering in France until you have reached France’s distance selling threshold of 35,000 Euros. In case you are already registered in Italy Studio Steduto can still takeover the VAT compliance activities from your current service provider, should you wish to centralize your VAT compliance activities.

At Studio Steduto we ensure and we look after all aspects for you. Our VAT consultancy team can provide the following services:

  • VAT and EORI registration
  • Preparation and filing of VAT returns
  • Issuing timely reminders of interim payments
  • Managing distance selling thresholds
  • Act as a correspondence address for all Agenzia delle Entrate documents
  • Are your tax agent dealing with local authorities on your behalf
  • Assign you a dedicated client manager offering you one-to-one support on all your VAT needs

With our fees, we ensure there are no hidden costs.  We are very customer-focused and want to ensure transparency in our work.

How to Start

I’m an Amazon and Ebay partner willing to sell in Italy, what I need to do?

  • You need to register your VAT number to the Italian revenue (Agenzia delle Entrate) first, after activated you have to manage your VAT compliance process periodically.

STEP 1 – VAT registration process

What documents do I need to obtain?

  • The documents required are:
  1. Copy of an updated certificate of registration of the company/or individual business to the local chamber of commerce. If not possible (eg. no chamber of commerce system) an equivalent certificate from another authority legally recognized.
  2. Copy of a VAT certificate released by the local fiscal authority of your country
  3. Copy of the passport of the tax representative of the company
  4. Specify what type of business you are willing to start in Italy (eg. web commerce of sunglasses)

STEP 2 – VAT compliance process

What does the overall compliance process look like?

  • The compliance process consists of 4 simple steps:
  1. Data processing – you can email us your Marketplace specific transaction report in order to ensure that the tax treatment is correct as well as to provide some information that is not included in the Marketplace specific reports.
  2. Return preparation – when you finalize the data processing, we will prepare the necessary returns (VAT returns, Intrastat (if applicable), EC Sales & Purchase Lists (if applicable) and yearly VAT return). We will then forward your returns and a summary file of our workings to your email.
  3. Client approval and payment – we will notify that your returns are ready for your review and you can approve it or not. We will also provide you with the amount to pay to the tax authorities and instructions on how to make that payment.
  4. Submission to tax authorities – once we receive your approval, we will submit the returns to the Italian tax authority (Agenzia delle Entrate).

What data do I need to provide?

  • You can provided data to Studio Steduto in various ways. Each month, Amazon will provide you with a transaction report (Marketplace) which provides details of all transactions carried out in the Amazon network. This report can be directly forwarded to us by email and processed by Studio Steduto to prepare your VAT returns. Alternatively, some Sellers may prefer to extract data directly from their own accounting system and provide this to Studio Steduto. You can forward us this data, we will process them in any case.

What fulfilments required in Italy to manage your VAT?

  • The Italian Revenue require to accomplish 3 main fiscal duties.
  1. VAT return – A VAT return is a periodic report that must be submitted to the Italian tax authority (Agenzia delle Entrate). VAT returns are typically submitted on a monthly or quarterly basis, although returns may be due less frequently depending on the nature of your business. The VAT return contains summarized details of all of your sales and purchases in Italy.
  2. Intrastat declaration – An Intrastat declaration is a statistical declaration and covers all supplies and purchases of goods. It is required only if your turnover in the calendar year exceeds a certain threshold. An Intrastat declaration contains additional statistical information, for example the item weights, number of units, commodity codes, mode of transport.
  3. Yearly VAT return – Consists in a yearly declaration of your total returns declared on monthly basis, it has to be used to verify if at the end of the year there any residual payments or credit to settle.

How do I make my VAT payments?

  • You are responsible for making your own tax payments and, with one potential exception below, Studio Steduto does not make payments on your behalf. With each return that we prepare, we will provide you with the exact amount that you must pay (if anything) as well as the bank account and payment reference that you should use.

Dealings with tax authorities

I have received a notification from a tax authority – what do I do with this?

  • Please send us a scanned copy of the letter or email. Within 3 working days, we will provide you with a brief summary of the document and any actions that are required.

What assistance can Studio Steduto provide in case of a tax audit?

  • A tax audit can take many forms but we have a lot of experience in managing these with the tax authorities and are able to handle the full scope of a VAT audit on your behalf. The fees for this service would be communicated to you in advance and based on the amount of time required to complete the audit

Ask us a quote of the services needed by filling the form below, we will answer within 24 hours!