Obligations for businesses and millionaire prizes for consumers
Prepared by Andrea Werner Beilin e Arcangelo Vitelli
Article 1, paragraph 540, Law no. 232/2016 introduced the receipt lottery.
This is a new free prize competition, which, after several postponements (most recently the six-month postponement provided for in Article 141, Decree Law no. 34/2020 due to the epidemiological emergency from Covid-19), will come into force from 1 January 2021.
On 5 March 2020, the Director of the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency issued Provision No. 80217/2020 (hereinafter the “Provision”), setting the operational instructions to participate to the receipt lottery.
The Provision in question regulates the following operational aspects:
- persons participating in the draw;
- rules for participating in the draw;
- draws and lottery prizes;
- the Lottery Portal;
1) Persons participating in the draw
Private consumers, provided they are adults and residents of Italy, who purchase goods and services from traders who use electronic means to transfer payments, may participate in the receipt lottery.
The following transactions are not included in the draw:
- Purchases made as part of business, arts and professional activities;
- Purchases documented via electronic invoices;
- Purchases for which data regarding payments has been passed to the Tessera Sanitaria [Health Insurance Card] system (with some exception, see below).
- Purchases for which the consumer asks the trader for their tax code for the purposes of tax deductions.
With reference to points 3 and 4, the Italian Tax Revenue Office, by decision no. 351449/2020, provided that the receipt can provide alternatively:
- the tax code, useful to the customer to obtain any tax deduction/tax deduction; or
- the lottery code, useful to participate in the national receipt lottery.
In this way, even those who are required to send the data to the “Tessera Sanitaria” will be able to transmit the data valid for the lottery, in the cases in which the customer communicates to the supplier the lottery code instead of the tax code.
2) Rules for participating in the draw
From 1 January 2021, all persons set out in Point 1) will be able to participate in draws by making a purchase equal to or in excess of the value of €1 and showing their lottery code to the trader.
Obtaining a lottery code is extremely simple. All you need to do is enter your tax code in the public section of the “Lottery Portal” on www.lotteriadegliscontrini.gov.it, which will be available from 10 December 2020.
This code can be printed or saved on a mobile device so that it can be shown to a trader.
For each electronic receipt transmitted to the Inland Revenue, the lottery system will generate a specific number of virtual lottery tickets.
Every receipt will generate “virtual tickets” for each Euro spent, with decimals rounded up if in excess of 49 cents (e.g. a €1.50 purchase equates to two tickets), up to a maximum of 1,000 tickets per purchase equal to or in excess of €1,000.
3) Draws and lottery prizes
Each receipt is entered into one weekly draw, one monthly draw and one annual draw.
Weekly draws will be made every Thursday, starting on 14 January 2021.
Monthly draws are scheduled every second Thursday of the month, for receipts transmitted and registered by the lottery system by 11:59 p.m. on the last day of the previous month (if the second Thursday of the month coincides with a bank holiday, the draw is postponed to the first following working day). The first monthly draw is scheduled for 11 February 2021.
Finally, at the beginning of 2022, on a date to be defined, the first annual draws will be held in which all the receipts transmitted and registered by the lottery system from 1 January 2021 to 23:59 on 31 December 2021 will participate.
The lottery includes prizes for “ordinary” draws and additional prizes for “cashless” draws, reserved for payments made via electronic means.
The following prizes are available for “ordinary” draws:
- 1 prize worth €1 million for the winner of the annual draw;
- 3 prizes worth €30,000 each for winners of the monthly draws;
- 7 prizes worth €5,000 each for winners of the weekly draws.
Pending the issuing of a Provision currently under evaluation by the Privacy Authority, the following prizes are available for “cashless” draws:
1) For consumers:
- 1 prize worth €5 million for the winner of the annual draw;
- 10 monthly prizes worth €100,000 each for winners of the monthly draws;
- 15 prizes worth €25,000 each for winners of the weekly draws.
2) For traders:
- 1 prize worth €1 million for the winner of the annual draw.
- 10 prizes worth €20,000 each for winners of the monthly draws.
- 15 prizes worth €5,000 each for winners of the weekly draws.
For the “cashless” lottery, the winning consumer ticket will automatically determine the winner of the trader prize.
All lottery prizes are tax free. The prize is paid by the Customs and Monopolies Agency via bank transfer, or – if no bank account is held – via a non-transferable cheque.
Prizes must be claimed within 90 days of receipt of notification of the prize win.
Weekly and monthly prizes that are not claimed within the specified timeframe will be used for additional prizes to be distributed as part of the annual competition, based on their number and fixed amount, through a Provision issued by the Director of the Customs and Monopolies Agency. Annual prizes that are not claimed within the specified timeframe will be used for the following year’s annual prizes.
Winners are immediately informed of their win via a text, email or instant message, provided they have entered their details in the private area of the Lottery Portal.
Winners will also receive a formal notice via the following means of communication:
1. a PEC (certified email) sent to the address entered by the consumer on the Lottery Portal; or
2. a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt sent to the last tax domicile known to the Agency.
4) Lottery Portal
The Lottery Portal is divided into two areas, one public and one private. It is available from 9 March 2020.
The private area is accessible via SPID (Public Digital Identity System), CNS (National Services Card) or Fisconline/Entratel credentials.
The following information can be consulted in the public section:
- information on the draw (number of payments, winning numbers, sum of winnings, etc.)
- draw calendar;
- status of individual draws;
- code of the winning certification documents and those relating to prizes that haven’t been claimed within the specified timeframe;
- instructions for participating in the draws;
- instructions for claiming prizes;
- relevant regulations.
Users can do the following in the private section:
- consult their personal profile, containing all information entered during registration;
- check individual documents issued and the number of virtual lottery tickets associated with these;
- check for prize wins (if a prize has been won, this will be shown in the private area, without the user having to provide any additional information);
- activate or deactivate various support functions for the different communication methods;
- view winning payments which are approaching the end of the timeframe for the prizes to be claimed;
- exercise their rights, including the right to oppose data processing;
- view the lottery codes associated with their tax code, as well as the dates these were generated.
Please be reminded that taxpayers will not be required to keep all the receipts via which they have chosen to take part in the lottery, given that all necessary information is provided on the Lottery Portal.
Finally, in both Lottery Portal areas, it will be possible to report any issues, inconsistencies and/or irregularities observed during the various steps involved in participating in the lottery and using the Lottery Portal.
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