Edited by Davide Accorsi, Lorenzo Ontano, Matteo Zovi and Edoardo Rezzi
Starting from December 2, 2024, the Italian Customs Authorities, as part of the reengineering project for the customs clearance system for exports, has implemented new electronic formats for transmitting export customs declarations.
The Italian Customs Authorities now provides to the exporters, for each export transaction, the EAD (i.e. Export Accompanying Document) in .pdf format and the proof of exit of the goods in .XML format (so-called “iVisto”).
To support the VAT exemption regime for export sales, the VAT law, under article 8 of the Presidential Decree No. 633/1972, states that “the export must be documented by a customs document or by a stamp affixed by the Customs Office on a copy of the invoice or on a copy of the accompanying bill […]”.
Regarding the proof of exit from the EU, both the Italian Customs Authorities and the Italian Tax Authorities are aligned in clarifying that the proof of export is provided by the electronic message (“exit results”) transmitted and recorded in the AIDA system by the customs office of exit of the goods to the customs office of export.
In particular, the Italian Customs Authorities clarified in the Note no. 1434/2007 that “proof of goods exit will no longer be provided by a stamp affixed to the paper document by the customs office of exit of the goods but will be constituted by the electronic «exit» message that the competent customs office will send to the export customs office via the ECS system. The operator will receive certification through the «export notification» message from the export customs office“. Furthermore, in the Note no. 3945/2007, it was stated that “printing this communication is not sufficient to proving the export; instead, the data contained in the Italian Customs Authorities’ information system, accessible to economic operators by entering the MRN (Movement Reference Number) assigned by the AIDA system when the customs declaration is accepted, is considered a valid proof“.
Additionally, the Italian Tax Authorities (Ruling no. 580/2020) state that “with the generalised implementation of the electronic customs declarations, the proof of export is provided by an electronic message («exit result») transmitted from the customs office of exit to the customs office of export and recorded in the AIDA customs information system. Therefore, what matters is the data contained in the AIDA system and not the printout of this communication held by the operator“.
In the light of the above, the electronic message (“exit results”) in .XML format (so-called “iVisto”), transmitted and recorded in the AIDA system by the customs office of exit to the customs office of export, is the proof supporting the VAT exemption regime for export sales.
Regarding this last point, it is necessary to point out that Italian Customs Authorities did not provide operational guidelines on the relevant way to keep the “iVisto”. Given this lack of guidance, despite the Circular Letter no. 26E/2022 of the Italian Tax Authorities considering the possibility of keeping the electronic message in .XML in paper form, the most appropriate choice would be to proceed with the electronic conservation of this document.
Based on the above, the exporters now have the possibility to search and download the EAD and the “iVisto” related to their export sales in their reserved area on the Italian Customs Authorities’ website. However, to date, it is not possible to perform a massive download of these files, with a consequent increase in time and risk of errors in the recovery of such documents that could jeopardise the VAT exemption regime of these transactions.
In this respect, with the support of IT tools, it is possible to automatically and massively search and download the EAD documents and the relevant proof of exit (so-called “iVisto”), thus obtaining a significant administrative simplification.
This allows, on one hand, to facilitate the search and collection of the proof supporting the VAT exemption for export sales, avoiding errors and omissions that could arise from manual operations, and, on the other hand, to optimize internal control procedures.
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