A cadastral alignment carried out officially in 2015 was overlooked in the online "dialogue" between public offices. The result? One property, a primary residence, becomes two for the tax authorities, and the owner (of only one, in fact) is served with a tax bill for failing to pay IMU on the second (which doesn't exist) for 2020. Total sum requested: €3,495.

A nasty end-of-year surprise for AF, a teacher from Cagliari, who today, December 31st—just in time to avoid the statute of limitations—received the infamous green envelope with which the Municipality is collecting its funds.

"The New Year's gift from the municipality of Cagliari is a tax bill for failure to declare and pay the IMU (property tax) on my home (which is also my first and only property)." He explains: "It's €3,500 that I don't owe because primary residences, as is well known, are exempt from the tax."

It didn't take him long to realize it was a mistake, "but I had to go to the Revenue Agency website and dig into the property's history to discover that the municipality hadn't implemented a land registry update from about ten years ago."

In short, the teacher is convinced of his reasons and won't pay a cent. "But I wonder: what happens if the notification reaches an elderly person who isn't familiar with the web? Or someone who's going through a rough patch? And ultimately, what kind of condition is a public administration in if it doesn't conduct an internal review or cross-check its own archives before sending a blow like this?"

The hassle of proving the error falls to the citizen who, AF emphasizes , "will have to initiate the self-cancellation procedure." But be careful, the document received "states that 'the self-cancellation request does not suspend or interrupt the payment deadline.' So, I'm right, but I still have to pay."

(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)