JUDGMENT NO. 50

YEAR 2026

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has delivered the following

JUDGMENT

in the proceedings regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of March 10, 2000 (New regulations for crimes related to income and value-added taxes, pursuant to Article 9 of Law no. 205 of June 25, 1999), introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of June 14, 2024 (Revision of the tax penalty system, pursuant to Article 20 of Law no. 111 of August 9, 2023), brought by the Tax Justice Court of Second Instance of Piedmont, Section 3, and the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, via orders dated March 10, 2025, and June 16, 2025, respectively, registered under numbers 79 and 256 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic, numbers 19 and 51, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having seen the appearance of A. R., as well as the intervention acts of the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard in the public hearing on January 27, 2026, Judge-Rapporteur Luca Antonini;

having heard attorney Alfonso Celotto for A. R., as well as State Attorneys Erica Farinelli and Gianna Maria De Socio for the President of the Council of Ministers;

deliberated in the chambers on February 23, 2026.

Findings of Fact

1.— By order dated March 10, 2025 (registered under no. 79 of the 2025 register of orders), the Tax Justice Court of Second Instance of Piedmont, Section 3 (CGT Piedmont), raised, with reference to Articles 3, 24, and 97 of the Constitution, questions of constitutional legitimacy concerning Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of March 10, 2000 (New regulations for crimes related to income and value-added taxes, pursuant to Article 9 of Law no. 205 of June 25, 1999), introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of June 14, 2024 (Revision of the tax penalty system, pursuant to Article 20 of Law no. 111 of August 9, 2023).

The challenged provision stipulates: "1. A final judgment of acquittal on the grounds that the fact did not occur or that the defendant did not commit it, delivered following a trial against the same subject and regarding the same material facts subject to evaluation in tax proceedings, shall have res judicata effect in the latter, at every stage and level, regarding those same facts. 2. The final criminal judgment referred to in paragraph 1 may also be filed in Court of Cassation proceedings up to fifteen days before the hearing or chamber proceeding. 3. The provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 shall apply, limited to cases of acquittal on the grounds that the fact did not occur, also to the natural person in whose interest the employee, legal or commercial representative acted, or to the entity or company, with or without legal personality, in whose interest the representative or administrator, including a de facto one, acted, as well as to their partners or associates."

The referring judge explains that the dispute concerns tax assessment notices issued by the Revenue Agency for the years 2014 to 2016 against the company Flashmap srl, deemed a closely-held company, and its two shareholders, to whom the failure to declare extra-accounting profits received had been alleged. The financial administration's claim was based on the assumption that a Swiss company, Flashmap sa, headed by the same shareholders of Flashmap srl and the sole owner of the latter, was fictitious, as it was established solely to subtract from taxation the profits realized by Flashmap srl, which was tax-domiciled in Italy. It further reports that the first-instance tax judge had rejected the appeals, considering it proven that the effective headquarters of the Swiss company was in Italy, given the documentation found at the Italian company as well as the fact that one of the shareholders had been committed for trial for the criminal offense of failure to declare value-added tax (VAT) as per Art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000. The taxpayer companies, both the Italian and the Swiss, as well as the shareholders, had therefore appealed, insisting on the effectiveness of the headquarters of Flashmap sa in Switzerland, "also considering that its administrator resides there," and challenging, among other things, the evidentiary weight recognized to the committal for trial in the criminal proceedings.

2.— The remitting court points out that, with reference to the 2015 and 2016 tax years, the Ordinary Criminal Tribunal of Turin had acquitted, with a final judgment, one of the shareholders of Flashmap srl of the crime under Art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, which had been alleged on the assumption of the "esterovestizione" (fictitious foreign registration) of Flashmap sa, and, consequently, deems itself required to apply the provision of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000.

Indeed, there would be the prerequisites to extend the effects of the criminal res judicata to the tax proceedings, with the consequent automatic annulment of the assessment notices.

The referring judge highlights in this regard that: a) the criminal judgment had become final; b) the acquittal was pronounced following a trial and with the formula "because the fact does not exist," as it was not proven that "Flashmap S.A. had a permanent establishment in Italy and that its administrative management was located there"; c) the material facts subject to evaluation in the criminal proceedings were the same as those that had to be ascertained in the tax proceedings; d) the effects of the criminal res judicata relating to the shareholder had to be extended, by virtue of paragraph 3 of Art. 21-bis, cited, to the company and to the other interested subjects.

3.— The remitting court, however, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of the provision under Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 with reference to Articles 3, 24, and 97 of the Constitution.

3.1.— The conflict with Article 24 of the Constitution is proposed because the extension of the effects of the criminal res judicata to tax proceedings would entail a violation of the Revenue Agency's right of defense, given that it would not be permitted to intervene in criminal proceedings to assert the protection of the fiscal interest of which it is institutionally the bearer, directly and immediately suffering the outcome of the criminal proceedings to which it remained a stranger.

In support of this argument, it cites the judgment of October 12, 2022, no. 29862, of the United Civil Sections of the Court of Cassation, which reportedly stated that the Revenue Agency, appearing as a civil party in criminal proceedings, could only request compensation for damages suffered and not payment of the evaded tax, since the compensable damage is ontologically different from the tax credit.

3.2.— Nor, according to the referring judge, could it be argued that, in criminal proceedings, the protection of the public interest in the correct collection of taxes is guaranteed by the presence of the Public Prosecutor.

3.3.— The remitting court adds that, even if one were to admit that the appearance of the Revenue Agency as a civil party in criminal proceedings could be aimed at protecting the tax credit, a violation of the right of defense could still be configured due to the fact that the entity "might not receive the notice referred to in Article 419 [of the Code of Criminal Procedure]."

4.— The violation of Article 3 of the Constitution, according to the remitter, would exist, in the first place, because the challenged provision would introduce an unreasonable disparity of treatment "between extra-criminal acquittal effects for non-tax crimes and those for tax crimes that negatively affect the primary interests of the State."

It highlights, in fact, that, according to Art. 652, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a final criminal judgment of acquittal delivered following a trial has the force of res judicata in civil or administrative proceedings for restitution and compensation for damages promoted by the injured party or in the interest of the same, but only if they "have appeared or have been put in a position to appear as a civil party."

Therefore, observes the referring judge, while a criminal judgment of acquittal can affect civil or administrative proceedings only if the injured party has participated or has been put in a condition to participate, similar conditions would not be provided by the challenged provision with reference to tax proceedings, "with an unreasonable disparity between absolutely comparable situations."

In fact, the challenged provision would provide for the extension of the criminal res judicata in tax proceedings regardless of the participation of the financial administration in the criminal process, with the consequent "marked imbalance to the detriment of the State's interest" in the collection of unpaid taxes.

Moreover, "the evidentiary regime is much more rigorous in criminal proceedings (where conviction is based on the criterion of 'beyond any reasonable doubt') compared to the tax one (where the civil criterion of 'more likely than not' prevails)," from which it would be inferred "the unreasonableness of the automatic extension of acquittal effects to an adversary judgment, based on different evidentiary and procedural rules, with procedural parties that do not coincide with the actors of the criminal proceeding. So much so that this very consideration justifies a rule such as Article 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: only if the injured party could intervene in the criminal proceedings, potentially carrying out their own investigative requests therein, can the balancing thus reached be considered reasonable."

5.— According to the remitter, furthermore, the disparity of treatment would also emerge from the fact that the Revenue Agency could not benefit with similar automatism from a criminal conviction. It would therefore not be understandable why the need to ensure respect for the res judicata in order to guarantee coordination between the various procedural systems "is felt only in favor of the defendant and not also, in case of conviction, in favor of the Agency."

6.— The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, asking to declare the questions inadmissible or manifestly unfounded.

6.1.— In the first place, the questions would be inadmissible for lack of relevance, as the referring judge did not sufficiently describe the "factual and normative framework of reference."

6.1.1.— Regarding the profile relating to the insufficient description of the factual framework, the state defense premises that the Court of Cassation, tax section, with judgment of February 25, 2025, no. 4935, clarified that the essential conditions for the applicability of the challenged provision are: a) identity of the facts examined in the tax process with respect to those contested in the criminal process; b) identity of the subjects reached by the criminal process and by the tax one; c) the acquittal formula of the criminal process, which must be rendered solely "because the fact does not exist" or "because the defendant did not commit it"; d) finally, the fact that the criminal judgment of acquittal must be pronounced following a trial.

It then highlights that the remitter would not have specified what the material facts underlying the criminal proceeding and the tax one were and if there was identity between them.

Furthermore, it believes that the remitter would not have clarified what the acquittal formula of the criminal judgment that would have had res judicata effect in the ongoing proceedings was, having limited itself to reporting that the acquittal was pronounced "because the fact does not exist," without, however, "specifying whether [the same] was rendered pursuant to the first or second paragraph of Art. 530 [of the Code of Criminal Procedure]."

This specification would have been necessary, however, since the Court of Cassation, tax section, with judgment of April 7, 2025, no. 9160, would have stated that, for the purposes of applying the challenged provision, a judgment of acquittal rendered with the acquittal formula referred to in Art. 530, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure would not be relevant.

6.1.2.— With reference, then, to the incomplete reconstruction of the regulatory framework, the state defense argues, in the first place, that the remitter would have limited itself to recalling the challenged provision without, however, carrying out an exhaustive illustration of its content; in the second place, that the referring judge would have completely omitted to confront the contrast currently existing in the legitimacy jurisprudence regarding the scope of extension of the criminal res judicata in tax proceedings, i.e., whether it should be limited only to the sanctions imposed or can also concern the tax assumption.

6.2.— Furthermore, the State Attorney's Office objects to the lack of motivation of the referral order, as the referring judge, after having referred to the orientation of the legitimacy jurisprudence according to which the Revenue Agency could request in criminal proceedings only compensation for damages and not the unpaid tax, nevertheless would not have illustrated "the reasons based on which it believes that the alleged vulnerability to constitutional values is caused by the legislative intervention now under examination, rather than by the jurisprudential solution concerning the issue of the limits to the appearance as a civil party."

6.3.— Finally, for the state defense, the question of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to Art. 97 of the Constitution would be inadmissible for lack of motivation, as the remitter did not illustrate the reasons for the conflict of the challenged provision with it.

7.— On the merits, according to the state defense, the questions would be manifestly unfounded.

7.1.— Regarding the violation of Article 24 of the Constitution, it argues that, in the internal legal system, the care of the fiscal interest is entrusted, on the one hand, to the financial administration, which exercises functions of verification, assessment, and collection of tax revenues and whose correct exercise is subject to the control of the tax judge; on the other, to the criminal judge, who is entrusted with ascertaining whether the most serious evasive behaviors are criminally relevant.

Compared, therefore, to the protection of the same legal interest, which is the fiscal one, there would be a competition of competences between different powers of the State.

The fiscal interest, therefore, would constitute a "super-individual" legal asset, entrusted to the care of multiple powers that operate on different levels (administrative and criminal) not conflicting with each other but aimed at the "uniqueness of the goal," that of ensuring its protection.

From this consideration, according to the state defense, should derive the error of the statement of the referring judge according to which the tax credit "does not reside within the criminal judgment, and, consequently, the Public Prosecutor cannot be the subject who guarantees the State's interest in the collection of taxes."

In fact, from the "super-individual" nature of the fiscal interest would derive that, in criminal proceedings, the care of the same interest is institutionally entrusted to the public prosecutor, to whom Art. 112 of the Constitution requires to exercise the criminal action obligatorily and, therefore, to act to protect the tax credit. The public prosecutor, to this end, is equipped with the procedural and methodological tools necessary for the ascertainment and repression of tax crimes. Therefore, the tax credit concerning the evaded tax would find protection in criminal proceedings through the activity carried out by the public prosecutor as an organ institutionally tasked with the protection of the public interest.

According to the state defense, furthermore, the reference made by the referring judge to the fact that, if one were to admit that the Revenue Agency can appear as a civil party to protect the tax credit, it would be harmful to the right of defense to "hypothesize that it might not receive the notice referred to in Art. 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure" would be irrelevant with respect to the question of constitutional legitimacy raised.

This is because the challenged provision does not provide that the Revenue Agency must not receive this notice of the setting of the preliminary hearing.

8.— With reference to the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution, the state defense believes that Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which regulates the effectiveness of the criminal judgment of acquittal in civil or administrative proceedings for damages, cannot be compared with Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000.

In the first place, it focuses on the fact that the challenged provision should be examined in the light of "a much broader legislative design aimed at fundamentally revising the relationships between the taxpayer and the Tax Authority."

According to the Attorney's Office, this evolutionary path would have been outlined by Law no. 111 of August 9, 2023 (Delegation to the Government for tax reform), whose objective would have been to simplify and reduce the tax burden and to establish a collaborative relationship between taxpayer and tax authority, centered on transparency and trust, in order to stimulate spontaneous compliance and reduce conflict. In line with the objectives set by Art. 20, paragraph 1, letter a), of the aforementioned enabling law, Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, by making significant changes to the tax penalty system, would have intended to "improve the integration between administrative and criminal sanctions, avoiding forms of duplication not compatible with the prohibition of bis in idem, in order to arrive at a general revision of the relationships between criminal and tax proceedings."

Placing itself on the same line, the legislator would have long since implemented a series of reforms of the tax procedure and process inspired by the ratio of equality of arms, in particular: "the generalization of the endo-procedural adversarial process [Art. 6-bis of Law no. 212 of July 27, 2000 (Provisions regarding the statute of taxpayers' rights)], the consecration of the prohibition of procedural bis in idem (Art. 9-bis, statute of taxpayers' rights), the positivation of mandatory self-protection (Art. 10-ter, Statute of taxpayers' rights), the introduction of written witness testimony [Art. 7 of Legislative Decree no. 546 of December 31, 1992 (Provisions on the tax process in implementation of the delegation to the Government contained in Art. 30 of Law no. 413 of December 30, 1991)]."

According to the state defense, this "broad reform framework" could not be referred to non-tax crimes, whose discipline, therefore, would not have been correctly compared by the remitter with the one now under examination.

The Attorney's Office adds that, while the provision of Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure regulates the effects of the criminal res judicata in civil or administrative proceedings towards the "injured party," i.e., who "is necessarily a private subject," the challenged provision would concern, instead, the acquittal effects of the criminal res judicata in the tax proceeding in which the Revenue Agency is a party, the holder of an interest protected through the impulse of the public prosecutor.

8.1.— Regarding the violation of the principle of reasonableness referred to in Article 3 of the Constitution, proposed by the remitter based on the consideration that the Revenue Agency could not benefit in the tax process, with similar automatism, from a criminal conviction, the state defense reiterates that the challenged provision should be evaluated in the context of the overall regulatory intervention with which the legislator intended to pursue the purpose of providing an integrated system of guarantees of fair process and the right of defense of the taxpayer.

The state defense continues by highlighting that "[i]n this framework it does not seem that the disparity of treatment compared to a criminal conviction can be legitimately complained of, the extension of which in the tax process responds to the different principle of the prohibition of ne bis in idem, which finds direct foundation in the Constitution."

9.— The state defense deposited a memorandum with which it recalled the considerations already made with the intervention act and argued about the question relating to the violation of the right of defense referred to in Article 24 of the Constitution.

In particular, after illustrating the changes made over time by the legislator regarding the relationships between criminal judgments and the tax process, it highlights that from the jurisprudence of this Court it would result that "in the legal system there is an equal right to exist both for institutions attributable to the principle of so-called unity of jurisdiction and for institutions attributable to the principle of so-called double track, from which it can therefore be inferred that the legislator can be considered free to structure coordination institutions between the various jurisdictions that are inspired by one or the other logic," provided that said institutions respect constitutional or union values.

It then highlights that the perspective towards which the challenged provision is directed would be to "introduce new guarantees to protect the personal sphere of the taxpayer who is also a defendant in a criminal proceeding on the same facts," arriving at the result of a fair balancing and balance with the opposing right of the State to the collection of taxes.

10.— By order dated June 16, 2025 (registered under no. 256 of the 2025 register of orders), the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13 (CGT of Rome), raised, with reference to Articles 3, first paragraph, 24, 53, 97, 102, first paragraph, and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, questions of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024.

The remitter explains that the dispute concerns assessment notices issued by the Revenue Agency for higher amounts due as VAT and regional tax on productive activities (IRAP) for the year 2013 against hidden shareholders and de facto administrators of a cooperative society deemed fictitiously constituted for the purpose of realizing a complex fraudulent mechanism aimed at tax evasion.

It highlights that, for the facts of criminal relevance on the basis of which the assessment notices had been issued, a "criminal judgment (also) of acquittal had intervened, pronounced by the Court of Appeal of Milan no. 2754 of 3/28/2023, filed on 8/10/2023" with the formulas "because the fact does not exist" or "for not having committed the fact," with the consequent redetermination of the penalty imposed for the facts for which, instead, criminal responsibility had been ascertained towards two defendants. It specifies, furthermore, that the criminal judge had deemed the exception of unusability of the evidentiary elements acquired by the officials of the Revenue Agency in violation of Art. 220 of the implementation rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure to be well-founded.

As regards, then, the criminal facts for which, at the outcome of the appellate judgment, the criminal responsibility of the two defendants had been ascertained, the remitter highlights that "for both defendants, as a result of the appeal to the Court of Cassation filed by both (in addition to that of the General Prosecutor, however, declared inadmissible), deemed by the Court not manifestly unfounded with regard to the common reasons of violation of law referred to in Art. 220 of the implementation rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the prescription matured, so that the Cassation annulled the appellate judgment without remand."

10.1.— The remitter then highlights that the contested facts and in order to which the acquittal had intervened concerned: a) the crime of criminal association aimed at the commission of an indeterminate series of crimes of issuance and use of invoices for objectively and subjectively non-existent transactions; b) certain end-crimes involving in various capacities the fictitious cooperative society of use of invoices for non-existent transactions, pursuant to Art. 2 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000; c) the issuance of invoices for non-existent transactions, pursuant to Art. 8 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000; d) the failure to declare referred to in Art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000; e) finally, the incorrect declarations referred to in Articles 4 and 20 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000.

The referring judge states that these would be "the same facts (and the identical tax reassessments) placed at the foundation of the assessment notice challenged before this Court."

The remitter therefore believes it must apply Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, but doubts the constitutional legitimacy of the challenged provision with reference to Articles 3, first paragraph, 24, 53, 97, 102, first paragraph, and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution.

11.— Regarding relevance, it believes that the challenged provision would be applicable in the pending proceedings as, as stated by a constant orientation of the supreme court (it cites Court of Cassation, fifth civil section, judgment December 2, 2024, no. 30814), it has a procedural nature, "and, therefore, undoubtedly influential for its definition."

On the other hand, adds the remitter, its literal tenor would be preclusive of a constitutionally oriented interpretation.

Furthermore, it acknowledges that, "on the applicative scope of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74/2000 […] the resolution of the following controversial issues concerning the scope of effectiveness of Art. 21-bis has already been referred to the United Civil Sections of the Court of Cassation – demonstrating the problematic nature of the norm in question – both in relation to the extension also to the tax relationship – or to the limitation to the sanctioning part only – of the effects of the final criminal judgment of acquittal from the tax crime (issued as an outcome of the trial with the formula 'because the fact does not exist'), and in order to the applicability of the new discipline to the hypothesis of acquittal with the formula provided for by Art. 530, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Court of Cassation, civil section, tax section, interlocutory order March 4, 2025, no. 5714)."

It highlights, however, that "beyond the exact scope of application to be recognized to the questioned norm [...] regardless of the solutions that will be offered by the highest nomophylactic judge, even if they were the most restrictive (i.e.: applicability only to sanctions and only to acquittal hypotheses pursuant to Art. 530, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure), they would not cause the reasons for constitutional illegitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 to vanish."

12.— As for the merits, the remitter believes, in the first place, that the challenged provision would violate Article 3, first paragraph, of the Constitution, as the procedural automatism introduced by it "[would express] an entirely arbitrary legislative choice that would inevitably [disturb], first of all, the constitutional canon of equality."

In fact, it would have introduced an unreasonable disparity of treatment between extra-criminal acquittal effects for non-tax crimes compared to those for tax crimes.

The remitter highlights that, unlike what is provided for by Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which the possibility of extending the effectiveness of the criminal judgment of acquittal in civil or administrative proceedings is conditioned by the fact that the injured party has appeared or has been put in a position to appear as a civil party, the challenged provision would provide for an automatic effect of the criminal res judicata in the tax process without any condition.

There would, therefore, be an unreasonable differentiated treatment, given that the fiscal interest would suffer a different and reduced protection compared to that ensured to the individual should their right be harmed by a fact constituting a crime.

12.1.— In the second place, the provision would violate the combined provisions of Articles 3 and 53 of the Constitution, in particular the principle of contributory capacity and tax equality.

In fact, as an effect of the challenged provision, "a situation of tax inequality between the taxpayer acquitted in criminal proceedings who obtains the automatic judicial annulment of the assessment notice or [of the] tax collection act even if they manifest their own contributory capacity would be determined, while the same fate is not ensured to the taxpayer who has never been reached by a criminal proceeding, despite having committed tax violations, precisely, less serious."

Therefore, giving "automatic entry into the tax process to the irrevocably acquittal judgment, even when the same – as in the present case emblematically – is founded on procedural defects or evidentiary unusability" would result, in substance, in an "aprioristic" renunciation of the tax claim asserted with the assessment act subject to challenge by the taxpayer even in those cases in which the latter, although acquitted in criminal proceedings, "possesses a contributory capacity suitable to justify the levy," thereby violating the duty of contributory solidarity.

12.2.— Furthermore, the challenged provision would violate Article 24 of the Constitution, as the right of defense of the Financial Administration, bearer of the interest in the correct collection of taxes and the recovery of unpaid taxes, would be harmed, given that it could not intervene in criminal proceedings to protect that same interest, taking into account what was stated by the Court of Cassation, United Civil Sections, judgment of October 12, 2022, no. 29862, and, therefore, could not assert in criminal proceedings the interest in the payment of the evaded tax, suffering "in the tax process directly and immediately the outcome of a judgment to which it remained a stranger, and on which it was never in a position to influence."

Moreover, it should be excluded, adds the referring judge, that the protection of the fiscal claim in criminal proceedings can be ensured by the presence of the public prosecutor, as only the financial administration is the holder of it.

12.3.— Furthermore, according to the referring judge, the challenged provision would violate Article 102, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which protects the jurisdictional function exercised by the tax judge, and Article 111, first paragraph, of the Constitution, as "[it would completely inhibit] the tax judge from exercising any evaluative-deliberative power on the acquittal statements."

Finally, Article 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution would be violated, in combination with Article 24 of the Constitution, as the challenged provision would have altered the principle of equality of the parties in the tax process, since their procedural powers would appear non-homogeneous: while the taxpayer could avail themselves in tax proceedings of the acquittal judgment pronounced by the criminal judge and invoke the effects of the res judicata favorable to them, the Financial Administration could not produce before the tax judge the criminal conviction judgment, rendered against the same taxpayer, to assert the same effects.

13.— The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office.

The state defense asked, as a preliminary matter, to declare the question of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to Art. 97 of the Constitution inadmissible for lack of motivation, as it was only evoked without illustrating how, according to the referring judge, the recalled constitutional parameter would have been violated by the challenged provision.

On the merits, it asked to declare the questions manifestly unfounded.

In particular, the state defense reproduces the same arguments already made in the intervention act relating to the proceedings regarding the order registered under no. 79 of the 2025 register of orders with reference to the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution, for disparity of treatment between extra-criminal acquittal effects for tax crimes compared to those for non-tax crimes, for which the provision of Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure would find application, as well as for disparity of treatment and for unreasonableness, resulting from the fact that the Revenue Agency could not benefit in the tax process, with similar automatism, from the criminal res judicata of conviction, and, finally, with reference to the violation of Article 24 of the Constitution.

Regarding, then, the conflict of the challenged provision with Articles 3 and 53 of the Constitution for violation of the principle of contributory capacity, the state defense highlights, in the first place, that this principle would not concern procedural rules, such as the one referred to in Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000.

Furthermore, it believes that, based on the jurisprudence of this Court, Article 53 of the Constitution should be interpreted in the sense of preventing the citizens' contribution to public expenditure from occurring in an amount exceeding their contributory capacity, while the determination of the individual facts expressive of contributory capacity would fall within the discretion of the legislator, subject to the control of constitutionality under the profile of obvious arbitrariness and manifest unreasonableness: therefore, in the absence of such indices, the constitutional doubt raised by the referring judge would be manifestly unfounded.

In any case, adds the state defense, the reasonableness of the challenged provision should be derived from the overall system of guarantees of fair process and the right of defense of the taxpayer that would have been introduced by the discipline of the new legislation, inspired by a radical modification of the relationships between the tax authority and the taxpayer.

14.— A. R. filed an act of appearance in the proceedings.

The taxpayer premises that the Revenue Agency had notified him of an assessment notice with which, relatively to the year 2013, he was contested a higher taxable income, for IRAP and VAT purposes, plus penalties, as a partner of Cargo Logistica, a company formally a cooperative, but reclassified by the financial administration as a de facto company. The higher incomes had been contested to him by transparency, as well as to the other de facto partners, as well as to the de facto company itself.

The assessment notice, in particular, originated from a complex fiscal verification activity, the results of which had flowed into a broader criminal investigation carried out against a consortium operating in the logistics, porterage, and transport sector. According to the view of the verifiers, the consortium and a plurality of first-level cooperatives, including Cargo Logistica, would have constituted a unitary operational system, structured in a pyramidal form, aimed at reducing the cost of labor through systematic fiscal and contribution violations, with the attribution of tax responsibilities to legal subjects only formally distinct.

The party therefore points out that, following the challenge to the assessment notice, during the proceedings pending before the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, a final criminal judgment had intervened and, therefore, had requested the application in their favor of the provision referred to in Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000.

15.— This premised, the party believes, as a preliminary matter, that the question of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 is inadmissible with reference to Art. 97 of the Constitution, as the remitter would not have motivated on the non-manifest unfoundedness.

On the merits, it maintains that the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to the other constitutional parameters would be manifestly unfounded.

It states that the reforming intervention, far from revealing itself as a harbinger of unreasonable and arbitrary disparities of treatment, would respond to precise criteria and directive principles aimed at strengthening the integration of the penalty systems in the perspective of respect for the principle of ne bis in idem in the relationships between criminal proceedings and tax proceedings, also avoiding that, as an effect of the separation of criminal and tax judgments, divergent evaluations on the same factual reality may emerge.

With such intervention, the legislator would have, in fact, wanted to avoid that what results non-existent on the phenomenal plane in the criminal sphere can instead be considered existing in the tax process, at least when the criminal judgment is the result of a trial judgment, characterized by procedural guarantees and higher evidentiary standards compared to those provided for in the tax process.

This legislative choice, besides responding to canons of coherence of the system, of economy of procedural tools and of presumption of innocence, would ensure greater conformity of the internal legal system also to the principles of supranational law.

With the challenged provision, in fact, the legislator would have intended to overcome the traditional double-track system, providing that the ascertainment of the non-existence of the fact in criminal proceedings – when expressed with the formula "because the fact does not exist" – has binding effectiveness also in the tax process, thus introducing a special procedural discipline that attributes to the criminal res judicata of acquittal a full preclusive effect, regardless of the circumstance that the acquittal was pronounced with the formula provided for by the first or second paragraph of Art. 530 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In making this choice, the delegated legislator would not only have implemented the specific directive principle and criterion referred to in Art. 20, paragraph 1, letter a), number 3), of Law no. 111 of 2023, but also the more general one set by Art. 3, paragraph 1, letter a), of the same law, thereby adjusting the internal legal system to the principles established at the supranational level and, in particular, by union and international law, such as, among others, that of the presumption of innocence.

From this perspective, according to the party, the questions proposed by the referring judge would not be suitable to demonstrate the overcoming of the external limits of legislative discretion, with the consequence that the evaluation regarding the opportunity and the extent of the balancing between the multiple opposing interests could only fall within the discretionary choice of the legislator. Rather, from the referral order would transpire a disagreement with the renewed balancing between opposing interests realized with the tax reform of 2023, but this would not be sufficient for the purpose of leading to a violation of Article 3 of the Constitution.

Nor, according to the party, would Articles 3 and 53 of the Constitution be violated, as, if the taxpayer has been acquitted in criminal proceedings, this should mean that there would have been no illicit conduct and, therefore, no violation of the principle of contributory capacity could reasonably be invoked.

As regards, then, the violation of Articles 24 and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, it highlights that the fiscal interest would in any case be adequately protected and represented also in criminal proceedings through the public prosecutor, who exercises criminal action also in protection of the financial interests of the State. To this, it adds that the evidentiary material relevant in criminal proceedings and in tax proceedings would be, in substance, coincident, with the consequence that the legislator's choice to attribute binding effectiveness to the acquittal trial judgment would not determine an unreasonable compression of the defensive prerogatives of the financial administration, limiting itself to giving relevance to an ascertainment that would have already been made also in the public interest in the correct application of tax rules.

On the other hand, concludes the party, as regards the violation of the principle of equality of arms, the legislator's choice positivated in Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 would be the result of a delicate balancing between opposing interests – public and private – which the legislator would have legitimately operated in the exercise of their discretion.

Findings of Law

16.— By order dated March 10, 2025 (registered under register of orders no. 79 of 2025), the CGT Piedmont raised, with reference to Articles 3, 24, and 97 of the Constitution, questions of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024.

The challenged provision stipulates: "1. A final judgment of acquittal on the grounds that the fact did not occur or that the defendant did not commit it, delivered following a trial against the same subject and regarding the same material facts subject to evaluation in tax proceedings, shall have res judicata effect in the latter, at every stage and level, regarding those same facts. 2. The final criminal judgment referred to in paragraph 1 may also be filed in Court of Cassation proceedings up to fifteen days before the hearing or chamber proceeding. 3. The provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 shall apply, limited to cases of acquittal on the grounds that the fact did not occur, also to the natural person in whose interest the employee, legal or commercial representative acted, or to the entity or company, with or without legal personality, in whose interest the representative or administrator, including a de facto one, acted, as well as to their partners or associates."

According to the referring judge, the challenged provision would violate Article 24 of the Constitution, as the Revenue Agency, holder of the interest in the assessment and collection of taxes, would be subject to the acquittal effects of the criminal judgment in tax proceedings, without having, however, the possibility of protecting the tax credit in criminal proceedings by appearing as a civil party, given that, according to judgment Court of Cassation, civil sections, no. 29862 of 2022, the Revenue Agency could use this procedural tool only to request compensation for the damage suffered, not the payment of the evaded tax. The fiscal interest would thus appear devoid of protection in criminal proceedings, and, according to the remitter, it could not even be considered that this could be ensured by the public prosecutor.

The remitter adds that, in any case, even if one were to admit that the appearance of the Revenue Agency as a civil party in criminal proceedings could be aimed at protecting the tax credit, a violation of its right of defense could be configured as the aforementioned entity might not receive the notice referred to in Art. 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

17.— Furthermore, the challenged provision would violate Article 3 of the Constitution because it would introduce an unreasonable disparity of treatment "between extra-criminal acquittal effects for non-tax crimes and those for tax crimes that negatively affect the primary interests of the State."

In fact, while Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that a final criminal judgment of acquittal pronounced following a trial has the force of res judicata in civil or administrative proceedings only if the injured party has appeared or has been put in a position to appear as a civil party in the criminal proceeding, similar limits would not be provided for by the challenged provision, since it would allow the extension of the criminal res judicata of acquittal in tax proceedings regardless of whether the financial administration has taken, or could have taken, part in the criminal proceeding.

Moreover, the evidentiary regime would be much more rigorous in criminal proceedings "(where conviction is based on the criterion of 'beyond any reasonable doubt') compared to the tax one (where the civil criterion of 'more likely than not' prevails)"; hence the unreasonableness of the automatic extension of acquittal effects "to an adversary judgment, based on different evidentiary and procedural rules, with procedural parties that do not coincide with the actors of the criminal proceeding."

According to the remitter, a further reason for disparity of treatment would be found in the fact that the challenged provision would protect only the taxpayer's interest in extending to the tax process the effects of the criminal acquittal judgment favorable to them, not also that of the Revenue Agency in benefiting with similar automatism from a criminal conviction.

18.— The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, asking to declare the questions inadmissible or manifestly unfounded.

19.— By order dated June 16, 2025 (registered under register of orders no. 256 of 2025), the CGT of Rome raised, with reference to Articles 3, first paragraph, 24, 53, 97, 102, first paragraph, and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, questions of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024.

19.1.— The remitter believes, in the first place, that the challenged provision would violate Article 3, first paragraph, of the Constitution, as it would have introduced an unreasonable disparity of treatment between extra-criminal acquittal effects for non-tax crimes compared to those for tax crimes, given that, unlike what is provided for by Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which the possibility of extending the effectiveness of the criminal judgment of acquittal in civil or administrative proceedings is conditioned by the fact that the injured party has appeared or has been put in a condition to appear as a civil party, the challenged provision would provide for an automatic effect of the criminal res judicata of acquittal in the tax process without any condition.

19.2.— Furthermore, according to the remitter, the challenged provision would violate Articles 3 and 53 of the Constitution: as an effect of the challenged provision, "a situation of tax inequality between the taxpayer acquitted in criminal proceedings who obtains the automatic judicial annulment of the assessment notice or [of the] tax collection act even if they manifest their own contributory capacity would be determined, while the same fate is not ensured to the taxpayer who has never been reached by a criminal proceeding, despite having committed tax violations, precisely, less serious."

Therefore, giving automatic entry into the tax process to the irrevocably acquittal judgment, even when the same is founded on procedural defects or evidentiary unusability, would result, in substance, in an aprioristic renunciation of the tax claim asserted with the assessment act even in those cases in which the taxpayer, although acquitted in criminal proceedings, possesses a contributory capacity suitable to justify the levy.

19.3.— There would also be a violation of Article 24 of the Constitution, as the right of defense of the financial administration would be harmed, given that the same, taking into account what was stated by Court of Cassation, civil sections, judgment no. 29862 of 2022, could not intervene in criminal proceedings to assert in that venue the interest in the recovery of unpaid taxes of which it is the holder; nor, adds the remitter, could it be believed that the protection of the fiscal interest in criminal proceedings can be ensured by the presence of the public prosecutor, as only the financial administration is the holder of it.

19.4.— Furthermore, according to the referring judge, the challenged provision would violate Article 102, first paragraph, of the Constitution as the jurisdictional function exercised by the tax judge would be harmed, and Article 111, first paragraph, of the Constitution, since it would prevent the tax judge from exercising their power to independently evaluate whether and what effects the criminal judgment of acquittal would have in tax proceedings.

Article 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution would also be violated, in combination with Article 24 of the Constitution, as the challenged provision would have altered the principle of equality of the parties in the tax process, since their procedural powers would appear non-homogeneous: unlike the taxpayer acquitted in criminal proceedings, who could invoke in tax proceedings the effects of the criminal res judicata favorable to them, the financial administration could not, in fact, produce in the tax process the criminal conviction judgment, rendered against the taxpayer, to assert the same effects.

19.5.— The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, asking to declare the question of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to Art. 97 of the Constitution inadmissible, and, on the merits, to declare the questions manifestly unfounded.

20.— Preliminarily, since the referral orders concern the same provision and raise largely overlapping questions, the joinder of the proceedings for their joint treatment must be ordered.

21.— In both proceedings, the state defense objected to the inadmissibility for lack of motivation of the question raised with reference to Art. 97 of the Constitution, as the remitting judges did not explain the reason for such reference.

The objection is well-founded.

Although in both referral orders express reference was made to Art. 97 of the Constitution as a constitutional parameter in the light of which the question of constitutional legitimacy was proposed, nevertheless in the motivations the explanation of the relevance of the parameter is totally missing, with consequent inadmissibility of the relative question for lack of motivation.

22.— In the proceedings regarding the order registered under register of orders no. 79 of 2025, the Attorney's Office also raised, in the first place, an objection of inadmissibility of the questions for lack of relevance, not having been sufficiently described the factual and normative framework of reference.

In particular, according to the state defense, the referring judge would not have carried out the necessary verification of the identity of the material facts evaluated in the criminal proceeding compared to those of the tax judgment.

Furthermore, it would not have been specified by the remitter whether the acquittal formula concluding the criminal judgment had been rendered pursuant to paragraph 1 or paragraph 2 of Art. 530 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Instead, this specification would have been necessary since the legitimacy jurisprudence would have clarified that the judgment of acquittal referred to in Art. 530, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure would not be relevant for the purposes of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, not containing any positive ascertainment regarding the non-existence of the structural elements of the fact, but only a finding regarding the absence of evidentiary elements suitable to attribute criminal responsibility to the defendant.

22.1.— The objection is not well-founded.

Regarding the profile relating to the non-exhaustive reconstruction of the factual framework, it must be observed that the referring judge clearly described, on the one hand, the facts underlying the tax contestation and, on the other, the criminal facts for which the judgment of acquittal intervened.

In fact, it highlighted that, with the assessment notices, the failure to submit tax declarations relating to the years 2015 and 2016 had been contested and that such omission had as a prerequisite the deemed "esterovestizione" of a company, Flashmap sa, which would have been fictitiously constituted abroad for the sole purpose of subtracting from taxation in Italy the profits realized by the company with tax domicile in the State. The remitter, furthermore, specified that the Criminal Tribunal of Turin had acquitted one of the appellants of the crime of failure to declare (referred to in Art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000) and that such crime had as a prerequisite precisely the fictitious constitution of the Swiss company.

This specified, the referring judge then highlighted that both the criminal and tax judgments were based on the same material facts subject to evaluation, i.e., on the "esterovestizione" of the company Flashmap sa, from which had derived, on the criminal side, the contestation of the violation of failure to declare and, on the tax one, the perception of undeclared profits.

Regarding, then, the profile relating to the insufficient specification of the acquittal formula, it must be noted that, contrary to what is claimed by the state defense, the remitter specified that the criminal judge had acquitted one of the appellants of the crime referred to in Art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 with the formula "because the fact does not exist" and it is for this reason that, having to apply the challenged provision, it believed that the criminal judgment of acquittal should have had res judicata effect in the tax process.

Also devoid of merit is the thesis of the state defense for which, for the purposes of the relevance judgment of the questions, the referring judge should have followed the interpretative orientation of the civil legitimacy jurisprudence according to which the acquittal formula, to which the challenged provision would refer, would be only that referred to in Art. 530, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure – which would postulate a positive ascertainment regarding the non-existence of the structural elements of the fact –, and not also that referred to in Art. 530, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure; this because, with the latter, the criminal judge would limit themselves to making only a negative evaluation regarding the suitability of the evidence to attribute criminal responsibility to the defendant and, therefore, could not be said to be binding for the tax judge.

It must be reiterated here that, according to the constant orientation of this Court (most recently judgment no. 25 of 2025), "the judgment on relevance is reserved to the remitter and, with respect to it, this Court carries out a merely 'external' control, limited to ascertaining the existence of a non-implausible, not obviously erroneous or contradictory motivation (for all, judgments no. 192 of 2022 and no. 32 of 2021), without going as far as an autonomous examination of the elements that led the referring judge to certain conclusions, being able to interfere in such evaluation only if it, at first sight, appears absolutely devoid of foundation (judgment no. 218 of 2020)."

With reference to the question under examination, the interpretative choice made by the referring judge to consider the challenged provision applicable in case of acquittal with the formula "because the fact does not exist," without the need to verify whether the criminal judge had carried out a positive ascertainment regarding the non-existence of the structural elements of the crime, is not implausible.

To this consideration it is possible to arrive also taking into account that, in the aftermath of the entry into force of the challenged provision (June 29, 2024), with the interlocutory order of March 4, 2025, no. 5714, the Court of Cassation, tax section, referred the acts to the First President for the possible assignment to the United Sections of the question of maximum particular importance relating to the scope of effectiveness of the same provision, an interpretative contrast having arisen in order to two profiles: the first, relating to the extension or not of the effects of the criminal res judicata of acquittal also to the tax relationship and not only, therefore, to the sanction; the second, concerning the applicability of the new discipline to the hypothesis of acquittal with the formula provided for by the second paragraph of Art. 530 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Therefore, the interpretative reading provided by the referring judge, even if implicitly, regarding the value of res judicata in the tax process of the ascertainment contained in the criminal judgment of acquittal rendered with the formula "because the fact does not exist," even if that ascertainment was negative in that the proof of the crime was not reached, does not result implausible.

23.— The Attorney's Office also objected to the inadmissibility of the questions due to an incomplete reconstruction of the regulatory framework of reference, having the remitter only generically made reference to the challenged provision without, however, giving account of the existence of different interpretative orientations regarding its scope of application.

According to the state defense, the remitter, in the presence of divergent jurisprudential orientations, should have illustrated the reasons based on which it believed it could access one rather than another of the interpretative options.

23.1.— The objection is not well-founded.

The referring judge clearly reported the text of the challenged provision and highlighted that it was required to apply it, given that the "acquittal, as provided for by the mentioned rule, occurred with a full formula and following a trial." From this consideration, it then derived that, "with reference to the same material facts subject to evaluation, such judgment has the force of res judicata in the tax process."

Under this profile, the regulatory framework of reference results sufficiently clear, also for the purposes of evaluating the relevance of the question.

The further profile remains, highlighted by the state defense, regarding the failure to consider the conflict of jurisprudence on the scope of extension of the challenged provision: whether, that is, the criminal res judicata has effect in the tax process only relatively to the sanctions (as a part of the legitimacy jurisprudence would have oriented itself following the direction inaugurated by the Court of Cassation, tax section, judgment February 14, 2025, no. 3800) or also to the tax claim.

In this regard, the principle must be reiterated that, for the purposes of evaluating relevance, "this Court is not called to judge the foundation of the various interpretations of the challenged provisions that contend for the field, but is required only to examine the plausibility of the hermeneutic premise from which the referral order moves to corroborate the relevance to the case examined of the doubt of constitutional legitimacy expressed (ex plurimis, judgments no. 207, no. 183, no. 181, no. 59, no. 32, no. 22 and no. 15 of 2021)" (judgment no. 27 of 2022).

From this point of view, the interpretative choice of the referring judge, which favors the orientation according to which the challenged provision would find application also in relation to taxes and not only to sanctions, results to be not implausible.

24.— A further objection of inadmissibility was proposed by the Attorney's Office in consideration of the fact that the violation of Article 24 of the Constitution would have been motivated by the referring judge taking into account the orientation of the legitimacy jurisprudence regarding which, in criminal proceedings, the Revenue Agency can appear as a civil party only for the purpose of obtaining compensation for the damage suffered, not also to assert the claim to the payment of the unpaid tax.

According to the state defense, the referring judge would not have illustrated the reasons why the violation of Article 24 of the Constitution would derive "from the legislative intervention now under examination, rather than from the jurisprudential solution concerning the issue of the limits to the appearance as a civil party."

24.1.— The objection is not well-founded.

In proposing the question of constitutional legitimacy for violation of Article 24 of the Constitution, in fact, the referring judge, with adequate motivation, reconstructed the regulatory and jurisprudential framework and it is in relation to this overall evaluation that it derived the conclusion that the challenged provision would harm the right of defense of the Revenue Agency, since it would require it to "suffer" the effects of the acquittal ascertainment made by the criminal judge.

25.— To the examination of the merits of the questions, it is appropriate to premise a synthetic reconstruction of the evolution of the regime with which the legislator has, over time, intended to regulate the relationships between the criminal process and the tax process.

The discipline of such relationships has long origins and finds in the challenged provision a choice that reflects the meaning that the legal system, after a complex evolution, today attributes to the relationship between financial administration and taxpayer, marked, on one side, by the consideration that tax compliance constitutes an expression of the mandatory duty of solidarity of the citizen to contribute to public expenses; on the other, by the need to identify effective forms of guarantee for the taxpayer.

26.— An expression of authoritarianism was, in fact, the original setting on which was based Art. 21, paragraph 4, of Law no. 4 of January 7, 1929 (General rules for the repression of violations of financial laws), which imposed the so-called "tax prejudicality," providing that: "[f]or crimes provided for by the laws on direct taxes the criminal action has course after the assessment of the tax and the relative surtax has become final according to the laws regulating such matter."

It was a fundamental choice that was not scratched even when, shortly thereafter, by virtue of the deemed superiority of criminal jurisdiction over others, with Art. 28 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1930 (a provision then subject to the declaration of unconstitutionality in judgment no. 55 of 1971) the binding and automatic effectiveness of the criminal res judicata on other judgments was established, as the same article provided for the exclusion of its application in those in which "limitations on the proof of the controversial right" were provided, resulting therefore inapplicable to the tax process, characterized by a peculiar evidentiary regime.

In evaluating the criminal responsibility related to crimes of tax-criminal relevance, therefore, the criminal judge resulted bound by the outcomes of the tax assessment and by the eventual verification that the tax commissions, non-independent administrative organs, had made of it, given that "the law (Art. 285, first paragraph, of [Royal Decree no. 1175 of September 14, 1931, bearing 'Consolidated text for local finance']) withdraws[ed] from the competence of the judicial authority every question that refers 'to estimation of income or to assessments of fact related to taxable matter,'" with a limitation "dating back to an era in which jurisdictional protection did not find full and complete implementation" (judgment no. 6 of 1969).

Furthermore, access to jurisdictional protection itself was limited by the rule of solve et repete, provided for by various laws, according to which the burden of payment of the tax constituted the essential prerequisite for the esperibility of the action for the purposes of the judicial ascertainment of the illegitimacy of the tax claim.

The overall structure of the system was therefore characterized in strongly statist terms, far from the very different configuration of the relationship between authority and liberty that would have been introduced by the republican Constitution.

Significant, from this point of view, was the rapid sequence of declarations of constitutional illegitimacy of the rules attributable to solve et repete (judgments no. 21 and no. 79 of 1961, no. 75, no. 86 and no. 89 of 1962, no. 100 and no. 125 of 1969), as well as the revision of tax commissions carried out with Presidential Decree no. 636 of October 26, 1972 (Revision of the discipline of tax litigation), which sanctioned their jurisdictional nature.

Even more emblematic was, subsequently, judgment no. 88 of 1982, with the declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of tax prejudicality, which concerned "Articles 60 and 21, third paragraph, of Law no. 4 of January 7, 1929, in the part in which they provided[ed] that the assessment of the tax and the relative surtax, having become final in the administrative way, was valid in criminal proceedings for the cognition of crimes provided for by tax laws regarding direct taxes."

According to the cited judgment, tax prejudicality is "certainly incompatible with the principle of free conviction, even more rigorous in the venue of criminal judgment," referred to in Article 101, second paragraph, of the Constitution, and with Article 24 of the Constitution "in that the administrative ascertainment that is valid in criminal judgment prevents the exercise of the inviolable right of defense."

26.1.— A few months after this ruling, the legislator, with Art. 12, first paragraph, of Decree-Law no. 429 of July 10, 1982 (Rules for the repression of evasion regarding income and value-added taxes and to facilitate the definition of pending tax matters), converted, with modifications, into Law no. 516 of August 7, 1982, established that "[i]n derogation of what is provided for by Article 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the tax process cannot be suspended; however, the final judgment of conviction or acquittal pronounced following a trial relating to crimes provided for in the matter of income taxes and value-added tax has the authority of res judicata in the tax process regarding the material facts that were the object of the criminal judgment."

Consequently, the legislator of 1982, on the one hand, excluded the suspension of the tax process due to the pendency of the criminal one, configuring, for this aspect, a "double track" between the two processes, in the sense of allowing them to start autonomously and independently.

On the other, while within a perspective directed at the tightening of criminal sanctions for tax crimes, it established the prevalence of the authority of the criminal res judicata in the tax process regarding the ascertainment of the material facts subject of the criminal process.

The previous order of prejudicality that had characterized the system of 1929 was thus overturned, establishing a coordination between the two processes structured in a more guaranteeing sense, in a way not dissimilar to that introduced by the challenged norm, except for the fact that the binding effect also of the conviction judgment and not only of the acquittal one was extended to the tax process.

The derogation from the rule of criminal prejudicality in the tax process was the subject of consideration in judgment no. 349 of 1987, which specified: "the challenged Art. 12 co. 1 [of Decree-Law no. 429 of 1982, as converted] does not perpetrate a violation of the Constitution, which on the one hand allows tax commissions to carry out their ministry although a criminal judgment is pending and on the other hand states that the final judgment – be it of conviction or acquittal – exerts the authority of res judicata in the tax process with respect for the subjective limits marked by C. cost. July 15, 1983, no. 247."

Furthermore, judgment no. 120 of 1992, although relating to the second paragraph of the aforementioned Art. 12, then provided a constitutionally oriented interpretation directed at binding in any case the financial administration to the criminal res judicata and judgment no. 264 of 1997 placed itself in the same direction, stating that: "the adjustment of the tax case to the ascertainment of facts operated by the criminal judge must be carried out, behind possible solicitation of the taxpayer, without being subject to the time limit of the expiration of the term for tax assessment: limit which 'according to a reading of the norm conforming to the Constitution, and conducted according to the general principle as above stated' is to be considered binding in an absolute way only with regard to the activity of fiscal bodies directed at modifying in worse the position of the taxpayer. So that the carrying out of such conformative activity occurs regardless of the moment in which the res judicata is formed. Nor assumes relevance the non-participation of the administration in the criminal judgment, given the different decisional scope of this one with respect to the administrative procedure."

26.2.— The Code of Criminal Procedure of 1988 then rewrote – by virtue of Articles 651, 652, 653 and 654 – the discipline of the effects of criminal res judicata.

As far as it interests here, Art. 654 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provided that: "1. Towards the defendant, the civil party and the civilly liable party who has appeared or who has intervened in the criminal proceeding, the final criminal judgment of conviction or acquittal pronounced following a trial has the force of res judicata in the civil or administrative judgment, when in this it is controverted around a right or a legitimate interest whose recognition depends on the ascertainment of the same material facts that were the object of the criminal judgment, provided that the ascertained facts were considered relevant for the purposes of the criminal decision and provided that the civil law does not pose limitations on the proof of the controversial subjective position."

The legitimacy jurisprudence then believed that Art. 654 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had entailed the abrogation of the aforementioned Art. 12 (Court of Cassation, fifth section, judgment September 29, 2004, no. 19481).

According to the consolidated orientation of the Court of Cassation, this structure entailed that "the Tax Judge cannot limit themselves to noting the existence of a final judgment of conviction or acquittal of the defendant in the matter of tax crimes and to automatically extend the effects of the same with regard to the assessing action of the individual tax Office, but, in the exercise of their own autonomous powers of evaluation of the conduct of the parties and of the evidentiary material acquired to the acts (Art. 116 cpc), must in any case verify its relevance within the specific scope in which the evidentiary compendium is intended to operate" (Court of Cassation, fifth section, judgment June 21, 2002, no. 9109).

In other words, according to the so-called principle of "circularity of evidence," the final criminal judgment of acquittal could be taken into consideration as a possible source of evidence by the tax judge, freely evaluable in relation to further investigative results, including those of a presumptive nature (Court of Cassation, fifth section, judgment February 13, 2015, no. 293).

26.3.— With Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, the regime of the "full double track" relating to the relationships between criminal proceeding and tax process was sanctioned, based on the principle of specialty and mutual autonomy between the two systems (criminal and tax), with the exclusion of any relationship of prejudicality.

With Art. 25, paragraph 1, letter d), Art. 12, first paragraph, of Decree-Law no. 429 of 1982, as converted, was explicitly abrogated, and, moreover, with Art. 19, paragraph 1, of the same legislative decree – according to which "when the same fact is punished by one of the provisions of Title II and by a provision that provides for an administrative sanction, the special provision applies" – the relationship of specialty between administrative and criminal provisions was also fixed, thereby giving implementation to the principle of ne bis in idem of substance.

26.4.— This structure, based therefore on the full autonomy of the criminal and tax judgment, did not show itself free of problematic aspects during the long time of its validity.

In practice, in fact, it could happen that the defendant definitely acquitted in criminal proceedings, even after years of trials in the various grades, for not having committed the fact or because the fact does not exist, could obtain the annulment of the tax claim, in hypothesis, only at the end of the equally long and parallel tax process.

The autonomy of the two judgments, furthermore, could lead also to different and contrasting outcomes, because, if the criminal judge had excluded the existence of a certain fact, the tax judge would still have been able to arrive at a different conclusion and consider it existing.

It is not surprising therefore that, in the explanatory report to the Government Act no. 144 of 2024 (concerning the "Draft legislative decree bearing revision of the tax penalty system"), it was highlighted that the challenged norm has the function of strengthening "the integration of the penalty systems in the perspective of respect for the ne bis in idem principle (delegation criterion referred to in Art. 20, paragraph 1, lett. a), no. 1)," which comes into play as regards sanctions of a punitive character following the tax offense.

These are problems to which this Court has not shown itself insensitive. Remarking the principle of ne bis in idem, it has in fact specified that this is preordained "to protect the defendant not only against the prospect of the infliction of a second penalty, but even before against the prospect of suffering a second trial for the same fact: and this regardless of the outcome of the first trial, which could also have ended with an acquittal. The primary ratio of the guarantee – declined here not as an 'organizational' principle with objective value, functional to the certainty of legal relationships, but as a fundamental right of the person – is therefore that of avoiding the further suffering, and the economic costs, determined by a new trial in relation to facts for which that person has already been judged" (judgment no. 149 of 2022).

26.5.— It is in consideration of this context that one must conclude that Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, arranging the effectiveness of res judicata in the tax process of the final criminal judgment of acquittal because the fact does not exist or the defendant did not commit it, pursues undoubtedly an objective of guarantee and simplification in the context of the complex relationship between the criminal process and the tax one, making concrete in this way, also at the procedural level, the need to protect the subjective position of the taxpayer.

Such objectives stand, as also highlighted by the State Attorney General's Office, in line of continuity, in the tax matter, with the "broader context of the evolution of the relationships between 'authority' and 'consent' and of the attempt at a gradual abandonment, by the Italian tax legislator, of the risalent authoritarian vision of the relationship between financial administration and taxpayer" (judgment no. 137 of 2025) in favor of the progressive passage to an approach based on compliance, on anticipated dialogue between tax authority and taxpayer, on collaborative compliance.

In this perspective, with specific regard to the procedural dimension, Art. 21-bis connects to the provision of paragraph 5-bis of Art. 7 of Legislative Decree no. 546 of 1992, added by Art. 6, paragraph 1, of Law no. 130 of August 31, 2022 (Provisions regarding justice and tax process) which provided for the obligation of the tax judge to annul the assessment act in case of insufficiency of evidence.

In fact, with the purpose of configuring a tendency alignment between the criminal process and the tax one, the cited provision provides: "The administration proves in judgment the violations contested with the challenged act. The judge bases the decision on the elements of evidence that emerge in the judgment and annuls the assessment act if the proof of its foundation is missing or is contradictory or if it is otherwise insufficient to demonstrate, in a circumstantiated and punctual way, in any case in coherence with the substantive tax legislation, the objective reasons on which the tax claim and the imposition of sanctions are based."

Compared, therefore, to the authoritarian setting that, in past times, had been proper to the tax prejudicality of Law no. 4 of 1929, the legislator has reached a landing point that reflects the vision according to which "the tax duty, in the constitutional conception, pertains to the pactum unionis rather than to that subiectionis," in that "functional to the financing of civil and social rights that the Constitution recognizes" (again judgment no. 137 of 2025, but in similar terms already judgment no. 288 of 2019).

Moreover, as highlighted for some time by the doctrine, precisely the condition of subjection of the taxpayer has historically favored ‒ due to the legislative mechanisms in which it translated: the so-called "particularism" of tax law ‒ the establishing of a pathological conflictual relationship between tax authority and taxpayer; and this, with a grave heterogenesis of ends, instead of favoring the fulfillment of the tax duty, has in good part fueled a cultural climate inclined to justify that exorbitant tax evasion that still afflicts our Country.

27.— It is in the light of these considerations that the merits of the questions must therefore be examined.

The first of them, raised by both orders, proposes, in substance, the violation of Article 24 of the Constitution, as the right of defense of the Revenue Agency would be harmed, given that the same, by virtue of what was stated by the Court of Cassation, in united sections, with judgment no. 29862 of 2022, could not intervene in criminal proceedings to protect the fiscal interest. The appearance as a civil party would be, in fact, permitted only for the compensation of the eventual damage suffered as a consequence of tax evasion, not also for the tax credit deriving from the evaded tax.

The protection of such credit, which would be extraneous to the function of the public prosecutor, would therefore not find hospitality within the criminal process.

27.1.— The question is not well-founded.

The right to defense, "already numbered among those inviolable of man" (ex plurimis, judgment no. 232 of 1989), is here invoked to protect the different position of the financial administration.

Moreover, the logical premise from which both referral orders move, that is, that, by virtue of the proposed absence of the Revenue Agency, the tax credit would not find adequate protection within the criminal process, is not correct, from several points of view.

27.1.1.— It must first be specified that tax-criminal cases do not concern so much the fiscal interest, but rather are aimed at safeguarding the correct fulfillment of tax obligations and commitments, in turn an expression of the mandatory duty of solidarity to contribute to public expenses referred to in Articles 2 and 53 of the Constitution, compromised by tax evasion.

In this perspective, the protection of the tax credit is certainly not extraneous to the pursuit of the public interest to which the action of the public prosecutor is institutionally directed, which is equipped with adequate procedural tools and disposes, pursuant to Art. 327 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, of the judicial police, including that with general competence in economic and financial matters, or the Financial Guard.

It must also be considered that the same Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024 provided for a strong institutional connection between the public prosecutor and the Revenue Agency.

In fact, the aforementioned legislative decree added, to Art. 129 of the implementation provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, paragraph 3-quater, so that "when it exercises criminal action for the crimes provided for by Legislative Decree no. 74 of March 10, 2000, the public prosecutor informs the competent provincial directorate of the Revenue Agency, giving news of the imputation" (Art. 1, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

It then integrated Art. 32 of Presidential Decree no. 600 of September 29, 1973 (Common provisions on the assessment of income taxes) and Art. 51 of Presidential Decree no. 633 of October 26, 1972 (Institution and discipline of the value-added tax), adding, for both articles, the following final paragraphs: "[w]hen the Revenue Agency receives communication from the public prosecutor of the exercise of the criminal action pursuant to Article 129, paragraph 3-quater of the implementation provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, of which Legislative Decree no. 271 of July 28, 1989, it responds without delay transmitting, also to the competent Command of the Financial Guard, the attestation relating to the state of definition of the tax violation" (Art. 1, paragraphs 3 and 4, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

In these terms, the Revenue Agency, through the reciprocal exchange of information, can contribute to building the investigative framework of the criminal proceeding, so as to support and support the public prosecutor in the identification of sources of evidence and, therefore, to allow the procedural ascertainment of the facts on which its assessment claim is based.

Above all, on a more general level, it must also be considered that the same legislative decree structured the criminal process by strongly strengthening precisely its finalization to the recovery of the tax ‒ not only, therefore, to the application of the relative sanctions ‒ and therefore of the tax credit relating to the evaded tax.

In fact, the institute of direct and equivalent confiscation, disciplined by Art. 12-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 and aimed at apprehending the tax subtracted from the treasury already ascertained in criminal proceedings, was modified in the sense that: "[...] the seizure of assets aimed at the confiscation referred to in paragraph 1 is not arranged if the tax debt is in the course of extinction through installment, also following conciliation procedures or assessment with adhesion, provided that, in said cases, the taxpayer results in order with the relative payments." (Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter e), number 2, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

It was, furthermore, provided that certain tax crimes are not punishable if the tax debt is extinguished during the pendency of the criminal trial (Art. 13 of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, as modified by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter f), number 3, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

It was sanctioned then that some attenuating circumstances of the crimes provided for by Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 find application, if the tax debt, outside the cases of non-punishability, is extinguished during the pendency of the criminal trial (Art. 13-bis, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, as modified by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter g, number 1, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

Again, always in the case of tax crimes, the plea bargain can be requested by the parties only when, before the declaration of opening of the first instance hearing, the tax debt, including administrative sanctions and interest, is extinguished (Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter g, number 2, of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024).

By effect of this overall discipline, substantive and procedural, the criminal process, far from disinterring itself from the tax claim, as erroneously sustained by the remitters, focuses, instead, with different and significant institutes, precisely on it, strengthening the objective of the collection of the evaded tax.

27.1.2.— Furthermore, the Revenue Agency can in any case participate in the criminal process as a civil party to assert the compensation for the damage eventually suffered as a consequence of tax evasion.

It is, in fact, still qualifiable as an offended person (Court of Cassation, second criminal section, judgment February 9, 2022, no. 4583), with the consequence that, pursuant to Art. 90, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, "besides exercising the rights and faculties expressly recognized to it by law, in every state and grade of the proceeding it can present memoranda and, with the exclusion of the Court of Cassation judgment, indicate elements of evidence"; which makes, moreover, erroneous also the deduced exclusion of the right to receive the notice of setting of the hearing.

28.— The second question concerns the violation of the principle of equality, which both orders propose with reference to the tertium comparationis represented by Art. 652, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which, for the final criminal judgment of acquittal to have the force of res judicata in the civil or administrative judgment for restitution and compensation for damages promoted by the injured party, or in the interest of the same, it is always necessary that this has appeared as a civil party, or has been put in a condition to do so.

In the light of this last provision, the challenged one would therefore introduce an unreasonable disparity of treatment between the effects of judgments of acquittal relating to tax crimes, which would have the force of res judicata even without the appearance of the injured party, compared to those relating to non-tax crimes.

28.1.— The question is not well-founded.

First of all, it must be specified that the challenged provision has a procedural nature, as has been clarified by the Court of Cassation.

This has clarified, in fact, "with results, in the last, almost unanimous, so as to constitute, to the state, living law," the "procedural character," since it impacts "on the external effectiveness in the tax process of the criminal res judicata (the first paragraph) and on the methods of production in the judgment of cassation (the second paragraph)," (Court of Cassation, tax section, interlocutory order March 4, 2025, no. 5714).

In this perspective, according to the constant constitutional jurisprudence, wide discretion must be recognized to the legislator in the matter, because the configuration of procedural institutes is censurable only within the limits of manifest unreasonableness or arbitrariness of the choices operated (ex plurimis, judgments no. 230 and no. 74 of 2022; no. 213 of 2021, no. 95, no. 79 and no. 58 of 2020).

The comparison of the challenged provision with the provision referred to in Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in this perspective, given the different scopes to which the rules refer, does not bring out an arbitrary violation of the principle of equality.

The latter, in fact, is built around the positions of subjects who act primarily for compensation for damages towards other subjects and aims to protect the right to adversarial proceedings in criminal trials of the injured person, imposing, as a prodromal condition to the binding effectiveness of the final criminal judgment in civil or administrative judgments, their participation or at least the concrete possibility of the same.

Such specificity, however, does not constitute even an absolute rule, so much so that it already does not recur, at least in the same terms, in Art. 653 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, relating to judgments for disciplinary responsibility.

The provision of Art. 21-bis, in any case, does not demonstrate an arbitrary breaking of the coherence of the legal system, in that not coming into play primarily are compensation for damages and the relative legal position of the injured subject, but rather the profile relating to the criminal acquittal with respect to the imputation of breach of a mandatory duty of solidarity.

The diversity of perspective of one and the other scope of application of the provisions compared thus results clear: while, in fact, in the case referred to in Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the legislator's choice is aimed at guaranteeing the right of the injured party not to be prejudiced by an ascertainment made in a process of which they have not been a party, in the case referred to in Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, instead, the profile relating not already to an individual right comes into play, but rather to the general interest in the fulfillment of the tax duty.

From this point of view, then, is not marginal what was previously observed (point 27.1.1.): on one side, in order to the strong institutional connection between the public prosecutor and the Revenue Agency that was structured by the same Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, allowing therefore to the latter a significant and active participation in the criminal proceeding; on the other, about the circumstance, more general, that to the criminal process, as seen, is not at all extraneous the protection of the tax credit deriving from the evaded tax.

29.— According to both orders, a further reason for disparity of treatment would derive from the fact that the challenged provision would protect only the taxpayer's interest in extending to the tax process the effects of the criminal acquittal judgment favorable to them, not also that of the Revenue Agency to benefit with similar automatism from the criminal conviction judgment.

The second order (registered under no. 256 reg. ord. of 2025), moreover, in this regard evokes also the violation of Article 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, in combination with Article 24 of the Constitution, in that the challenged provision would have altered the principle of equality of the parties in the tax process.

29.1.— Also such questions are not well-founded.

Purely in this case, the wide discretion that is traditionally recognized to the legislator by constitutional jurisprudence in the matter of configuration of procedural institutes must be recalled. This premised, even if in Art. 654 of the Code of Criminal Procedure it is not distinguished between judgments of acquittal and conviction and therefore, from this point of view, Art. 21-bis introduces a special discipline, it must also be considered that it implements a precise indication of the delegating legislator that referred only to the acquittal judgment, since Art. 20, paragraph 1, letter a), number 3), of Law no. 111 of 2023, prescribes "to revise the relationships between the criminal process and the tax process providing, in coherence with the general principles of the legal system, that, in cases of final acquittal judgment because the fact does not exist or the defendant did not commit it, the material facts ascertained in the trial venue make state in the tax process regarding the ascertainment of the facts themselves."

And it must be remarked that the aforementioned Art. 20 of the enabling law, in turn, connected with Art. 1 of the same, which required the "respect of constitutional principles as well as those of the European Union legal system and international law."

It must, on the point, furthermore, in particular, be recalled also the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Tasoncom srl v. Moldova, tenth section, of October 22, 2024, which deemed existent the violation of Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR in that the Supreme Court of Justice of Moldova had rejected the judgment of revocation of the appellate conviction judgment in the tax process despite the criminal res judicata of acquittal on the same material facts ascertained having intervened.

In definitive, the circumstance that Art 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000 limited to the only acquittal judgment the derogation from the double track principle, which for a long time characterized the relationships between the criminal process and the tax process, does not appear to exceed the threshold of manifest unreasonableness, according to the parameter with which this Court is accustomed to judge the discretionary choice of the legislator in the matter of procedural rules.

30.— The further questions raised only by the second order (registered under no. 256 of the register of orders 2025) remain to be examined.

They concern, in the first place, the violation of Articles 3, first paragraph, and 53 of the Constitution, and are based on a dual argument: on one side, that, being precluded in the criminal process the evidentiary tools typical of the tax process, the challenged provision would determine a worse treatment, compared to the taxpayer acquitted in criminal proceedings, of that not subjected to a criminal process because they committed violations of lesser gravity; on the other, that the challenged provision would entail an unjustified renunciation of the tax claim towards who, although acquitted for procedural defects or evidentiary unusability, would be in reality held to the payment of taxes based on their contributory capacity.

The remitter, in the second place, maintains the violation of Articles 102, first paragraph, and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, as the jurisdictional function exercised by the tax judge would be harmed, to whom would be prevented from exercising their power to evaluate autonomously the effects of the criminal judgment of acquittal in the tax process.

30.1.— The questions are not well-founded in the following terms.

The legislator of the novelty believed that, when in the two processes the facts are the same and the evaluations reached in the criminal process ‒ which is the system endowed with the investigative and trial procedure most suitable to guarantee the verification of the controversial material occurrences ‒ lead to acquittal with the formulas "the fact does not exist" or "the defendant did not commit it," the tax process cannot attest a different and contrary phenomenal reality.

In this perspective, Art. 21-bis granted the taxpayer the same level of guarantee that is ensured to the defendant in the criminal process, in terms of evidentiary standard and prerequisites for a judgment of guilt, which must occur, according to what Art. 533, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure recites "beyond any reasonable doubt."

This is, undoubtedly, a guaranteeing choice, which cannot be considered manifestly unreasonable, if framed within the limits of a constitutionally oriented interpretation.

This must be developed according to a dual order of arguments.

30.1.1.— In the first place, it is necessary to consider that to reach the purpose that justifies it, i.e., ensuring coordination between the two judgments in function of simplification and certainty of the legal situations formed within the legal system, the derogation from the double track principle must respond to the principle of reasonableness pursuant to Article 3 of the Constitution.

This implies, on one side, that it is necessary to avoid that every tax judge is called, from time to time, to define the exact scope, through the examination of the content of the criminal judgment, of the acquittal formula.

It must be recalled, moreover, that, according to the criminal united sections of the Court of Cassation (judgment May 29-October 28, 2008, no. 40049), as regards the acquittal formula to be used at the outcome of the criminal process, the rule of judgment contained in Art. 530, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure imposes the adoption of the formulas: "the fact does not exist" or "the defendant did not commit it," both "in the case that the positive proof of the non-existence of the fact or of its non-commission by the defendant has been reached, and also in the case of lack, or of insufficiency or of contradiction of the relative proof, since the different entity of the proof cannot reverberate on the acquittal formula to be used, which must remain the same in both cases."

From this point of view, Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, in compliance with this assumption, does not differentiate depending on whether the pronouncement of acquittal is rendered following a positive ascertainment of the non-existence of the fact or of a negative ascertainment based on the insufficiency of evidence.

In these terms, the challenged provision distinguishes itself from that referred to in Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in relation to which the civil united sections of the Court of Cassation (judgment January 26, 2011, no. 1768) stated that "the acquittal judgment is suitable to produce the effects of res judicata indicated therein not in relation to the formula used, but only in that it contains, in categorical terms, an effective and positive ascertainment regarding the non-existence of the fact or the impossibility of attributing it to the defendant."

This constant and consolidated legitimacy orientation, which concerned the applicative scope of Art. 652 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, valid in general for the purposes of the discipline of the relationship between criminal process and civil and administrative judgments (and therefore also for Articles 653 and 654 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), is not replicable in reference to the challenged provision, which uses a different terminology, in that it no longer refers, like the aforementioned articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to an "ascertainment" of facts or to "ascertained facts," but limits itself to providing that the acquittal judgment must have regard to the "same material facts subject to evaluation in the tax process."

Furthermore, it must also be considered that, had the legislator wanted to exclude the hypothesis of paragraph 2 of Art. 530 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, they would have done so explicitly, just as, moreover, they avoided reproducing the provision contained in Art. 652, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which "[t]he same effectiveness has the final acquittal judgment pronounced according to Article 442, if the civil party has accepted the summary judgment," thus excluding decisions pronounced with special rites.

From this, such content of Art. 21-bis stands systematically in line with the already recalled paragraph 5-bis of Art. 7 of Legislative Decree no. 546 of 1992, which provided for the obligation of the tax judge to annul the assessment act in case of insufficiency of evidence.

It would result, also under this profile, not in harmony with respect to the enunciated finalities of simplification and certainty of legal relationships, to believe that Art. 21-bis wanted to remit to every tax judge the faculty to exclude the validity of the criminal res judicata without the full formula, when then this same tax judge, at the outcome of their judgment, is in any case held to the annulment of the assessment act, in case of insufficiency of evidence, by virtue of the aforementioned paragraph 5-bis of Art. 7.

30.1.2.— In the second place, however, the risk of an excessive misalignment of the two processes is undeniable when typical tax cases come into consideration, difficult to ascertain without recourse to legal presumptions, which the criminal judge cannot apply for the purposes of the formation of their conviction, which, as said, must occur beyond any reasonable doubt.

In this regard, it must be premised that no criticality is imaginable when the criminal judge excludes the existence of the fact making recourse to simple presumptions, because there exists in the two processes, in this case, an identity of evidentiary tools. The possibility of making recourse to this particular regime of proof is, in fact, recognized both in the criminal scope (Art. 192 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and in the tax one, as expressly provided for by specific provisions (for example, Art. 39, paragraph 1, letter d), of Presidential Decree no. 600 of 1973).

No misalignment between the two processes occurs then in reference to very simple presumptions, provided for by Articles 39, paragraph 2, and 41, paragraph 2, of Presidential Decree no. 600 of 1973, which allow only the tax judge, under certain conditions, ascertainments founded also on presumptions devoid of the requirements of gravity, precision and concordance. To these presumptions, in fact, the legislator allows to make recourse when it is necessary to determine the business income in a context of absolute lack or falsity of the accounting. In these cases, since the an (whether) of the evasion is certain, they are functional only to determine the quantum (amount).

In this regard, it must be recalled that the legitimacy jurisprudence is constant in believing that the punishability threshold configures "a constitutive element of the crime fact," with the consequence that its failure to integrate entails acquittal (Court of Cassation, third criminal section, judgment June 16-August 29, 2016, no. 35611), so that, in these cases, the facts ascertained for criminal purposes are different from those relevant in the tax venue.

In such cases, therefore, it cannot be believed that there exists that identity of material facts which, instead, is the prerequisite for the applicability of Art. 21-bis.

A serious criticality in relation to the application of such provision can, instead, occur when the object of the criminal ascertainment are certain typical cases, in relation to which tax law brings into play the evidentiary regime of legal presumptions.

These are limited hypotheses, such as, for example, those relating to the profitability of bank movements (Art. 32 of Presidential Decree no. 600 of 1973); to fiscal residence (Art. 2, paragraphs 2 and 2-bis, of Presidential Decree no. 917 of December 22, 1986, bearing "Approval of the consolidated text of income taxes"); to the residence of trusts (Art. 73, paragraph 3, of Presidential Decree no. 917 of 1986); to the residence of companies (Art. 73, paragraphs 5-bis and 5-quater, of Presidential Decree no. 917 of 1986); to the determination of employee income (Art. 52 of Presidential Decree no. 917 of 1986); to evasion for non-declared foreign investments (Art. 12 of Decree-Law no. 78 of July 1, 2009, bearing "Anti-crisis measures, as well as extension of deadlines," converted, with modifications, into Law no. 102 of August 3, 2009); to the discipline on the presumption of sale and purchase of goods (Art. 53 of Presidential Decree no. 633 of 1972).

The peculiarity of these legal presumptions is that, being cases in which the positive ascertainment of a fact by the financial administration would result extremely complex, upon the occurrence of the known fact provided for by the legislator, the burden of providing the contrary proof falls on the taxpayer, demonstrating the non-existence of the fact.

It could therefore occur, in the cases in which these legal presumptions operate, that the criminal judge, not being able to apply the legal presumption for the purposes of the formation of their own conviction, arrives at excluding the existence of a certain fact (for example, the "esterovestizione" of a company) precisely when the tax judge, applying that legal presumption, would have been able to arrive, in the absence of the contrary proof by the taxpayer, at deeming the tax claim legitimate.

In cases where legal presumptions enter the field, therefore, Art. 21-bis could be interpreted in such a way as to determine an excessive compression of the evidentiary standard of which the tax judge disposes in order to verify the correct fulfillment of the mandatory duty to contribute to public expenses.

Such interpretation, which, seeing it well, unbalances excessively the rule of prevalence of the criminal res judicata of acquittal to the detriment of the tax judge's autonomy of evaluation, is not, however, the only one practicable.

It must therefore be excluded, being possible and dutiful a different interpretation of the challenged provision, oriented to conformity to the Constitution and which precludes its applicability only when, on one side, cases attributable to typical legal presumptions come into consideration, and on the other, the criminal judgment of acquittal does not follow a positive ascertainment of the non-existence of the fact.

This interpretation, which places the norm safe from the vices of constitutional illegitimacy denounced by the remitter, is based on the assumption that in this case that identity of material facts in evaluation on which the mechanism of the challenged norm develops does not configure.

Identity which instead is realized when inside the same criminal process the contrary proof emerges and therefore Art. 21-bis returns to be applicable. In fact, if the criminal judge has acquitted the defendant valuing those elements of proof that, in the tax process, would constitute the contrary proof to a legal presumption, this entails, in substance, that they have made that same evaluation of facts that the tax judge would in any case be held to make if the taxpayer had provided the contrary proof.

There would be, then, no unjustified interference on the evidentiary regime of the tax judgment.

Interpreted in these terms, in other words, the system outlined by Art. 21-bis does not stand in contrast with the autonomy of the tax judgment and its evidentiary peculiarities: it realizes, rather, a fair balance between the aforementioned constitutional principles (points 26.4. and 26.5.).

By way of example, if the taxpayer provides in the criminal process the contrary proof requested by Art. 73, paragraph 5-bis, of Presidential Decree no. 917 of 1986, introduced to contrast "esterovestizioni," demonstrating that the board of directors is not composed in prevalence by directors residing in the territory of the State, the criminal judgment will make state in the tax process, because the evaluated facts are the same and no unreasonable misalignment between the two processes has occurred.

If, instead, the contrary proof does not emerge in the criminal process and the judge acquits only because they have not reached certainty beyond any reasonable doubt, the misalignment, being able to come to cover a phenomenon of tax evasion, would become unreasonable. Not, however, due to the acquittal formula (the considerations of which at point 30.1.1. are valid in this regard), but of the unusability in the criminal process of the legal presumptions that the law, instead, allows in the tax one.

The same reasoning must be carried out also when the acquittal in the criminal process follows exclusively (as in the case reported by the referral order) the verification that the totality of the evidentiary elements was acquired in violation of specific rules established by criminal procedural law, not provided however within the scope of tax law.

Also in this case it must be believed that the rule of Art. 21-bis on the constraint of the criminal res judicata for the tax judge cannot find application, in that the criminal judge did not base themselves on the consideration of the elements of proof placed to their attention, not even in negative terms, but merely stopped at the procedural "threshold" of their non-usability in the judgment.

In such cases, therefore, it will be up to the tax judge to verify, according to the rules of the fiscal order, in order to the eventual usability of such evidentiary elements within the tax process.

30.2.— In the light of the aforementioned interpretation, oriented to conformity to the Constitution, the raised questions must therefore be deemed not well-founded.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

joined the proceedings,

1) declares inadmissible the question of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of March 10, 2000 (New regulations for crimes related to income and value-added taxes, pursuant to Article 9 of Law no. 205 of June 25, 1999), introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of June 14, 2024 (Revision of the tax penalty system, pursuant to Article 20 of Law no. 111 of August 9, 2023), raised, with reference to Article 97 of the Constitution, by the Tax Justice Court of Second Instance of Piedmont, Section 3, as well as by the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, with the orders indicated in the epigraph;

2) declares not well-founded the question of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, raised, with reference to Article 24 of the Constitution, by the Tax Justice Court of Second Instance of Piedmont, Section 3, as well as by the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, with the orders indicated in the epigraph;

3) declares not well-founded the question of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, raised, with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution, by the Tax Justice Court of Second Instance of Piedmont, Section 3, as well as by the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, with the orders indicated in the epigraph;

4) declares not well-founded the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, raised, with reference to Articles 24 and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, by the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, with the order indicated in the epigraph;

5) declares not well-founded, in the sense of what is in the motivation, the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 21-bis of Legislative Decree no. 74 of 2000, introduced by Art. 1, paragraph 1, letter m), of Legislative Decree no. 87 of 2024, raised, with reference to Articles 3, first paragraph, 53, 102, first paragraph, and 111, first and second paragraphs, of the Constitution, by the Tax Justice Court of First Instance of Rome, Section 13, with the order indicated in the epigraph.

So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on February 23, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Luca ANTONINI, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Director of the Chancellery

Filed in the Chancellery on April 13, 2026

The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original