Italian Supreme Court, Criminal Division III, judgment no. 33546/2026, filed 14 September 2026

In cases concerning the issuing of invoices for non-existent transactions, the Italian Supreme Court has clarified the limits of preventive seizure aimed at confiscation against the issuer. The measure may concern the price of the offence, identified in the remuneration agreed or received for issuing the invoices, but it cannot automatically extend to the tax profit obtained by the person who used them.

The distinction also follows from Article 9 of Legislative Decree no. 74/2000, which derogates from the ordinary rules on participation in offences as between the offence of issuing false invoices and fraudulent tax returns through their use, unless conduct going beyond the mere issuing of invoices is involved.

Defence relevance. The ruling is particularly important at the asset-seizure stage: it requires the alleged advantage attributable to the issuer’s offence to be identified precisely and prevents the tax saving obtained by the user from being transferred to the issuer without an adequate legal basis. The Court also reiterated that, on review, continuation of the seizure cannot be based on facts or an offence different from those underlying the original order.

Source

TributarIA – summary and link to judgment no. 33546/2026. ECLI:IT:CASS:2026:33546PEN.