MAJOR NEWS FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND ELECTRONIC SERVICES IN 2021

For the qualification of the various types of Telecommunications, Broadcasting and Electronic services, the Italian Revenue Agency issued at the time the Ministerial Circular n. 22/E/2016.

In particular:

• Telecommunications services are fixed and mobile telephony services, telephone services provided over the Internet (VOIP), voice mail, on-call services and the like, radio paging services, audiotext services, Internet access and the World Wide Web, etc. ;
• Broadcasting services are services providing audio and audiovisual content to the public, such as radio or television programmes – the peculiarity of such services is that they are aimed at the public (rather than individual recipients), in being provided by a media service provider under its editorial responsibility and intended for simultaneous listening and viewing by the public;
• Electronic services are the provision of digital products (including software); websites and web pages, which support or convey the presence of an entity on the network; services automatically generated by a computer in response to specific data entered by the recipient; the granting of the right to offer for sale a good or a service on a website that operates as an online market; flat-rate offers of Internet services (web access and information services, gaming, access to debates) and, more generally, the services listed in Annex I to EU Regulation no. 282/2011.

Definitions are relevant for qualifying direct and indirect e-commerce activities.

Important novelties for the tax treatment of transactions are planned to enter into force during 2021, after some effects of the legislation in force have been deferred due to the effects of the epidemiological emergency.