Tax breaks

L'tax break, to be claimed on your tax return, is only applicable for some of the companies you find on Mamacrowd.

How to understand if you can take advantage of it on your investment? You need to verify that the company falls among startups and innovative SMEs .

1 - The most immediate way is represented by the "label" placed inside the project page, just above the name of the project/company. The investment benefits from the deduction in case "TAX bonus" is present.

2 - Another way to make sure that the company is classified as a startup or innovative SME is to consult, within the Documents section the company's visura.

What is the applicable tax rate?

The Ministry of Economy and Finance with the Decree of 07/05/2019 established that for investments in startups and innovative SMEs the 30 percent rate is always applicable, in the form of a tax deduction for investments made as a natural person (the relief applies directly to reduce the total tax owed by the taxpayer) and as a tax deduction for those made as a legal person (the relief applies on the tax base).

The Relaunch Decree of 05/19/2020, for investments made as a natural person only, raised therate to 50 percent, but subjecting the application to the so-called "Regime of miminis," which identifies certain requirements that bidding companies must meet.

Among the requirements, the most notable is the requirement that the maximum amount of public aid granted under the de minimis regime to the innovative company does not exceed 200,000 euros over three fiscal years. This implies that the company cannot apply the 50 percent rate if it has already received other forms of facilitation in the three-year period that exceed this amount, and even in this case, it still cannot offer the 50 percent rate on investments made on crowdfunding equity raising above the 400,000 euro cap, having to then apply 30 percent on the excess.

Moreover, the granting of the facility is tied to a rather onerous and complex ministerial authorization procedure, so there are few companies that fall under this Regime and offer this possibility.

What to do to take advantage of the relief?

In the case of the 30% rate, the year following the year in which the shareholder's list is filed with the Chamber of Commerce, the investor receives directly from the offering company a document certifying the investment made in the innovative company, with the data necessary to fill out the appropriate framework in the Unico form (it is therefore not possible to fill out the 730 form). A copy of the business plan should also be attached to the document sent by the company, which can be downloaded from the Documents section on the project profile page on the Mamacrowd website. The filing of the shareholder list usually takes place no earlier than one month after the close of the campaign, this can then result in postponement to the following year for campaigns underway at the end of the year.

In the case of the 50 percent rate, as anticipated, the application of the tax break is subject to a special application that the bidding company must make, after the conclusion of the campaign, on the IT platform of the Ministry of Economic Development.

How is the tax break applied?

The facilitation operates in alump sum the year following the year in which the filing of the membership list with the Chamber of Commerce for entry in the company's Register of Members takes place. In case of incapacity of the tax base (legal persons) or total taxes (individuals), the amount can be carried forward for three years from the date of investment.

It should be emphasized that the tax advantage is a relevant but not decisive added value with respect to the evaluation of a project. Even companies that are not classified as innovative offer very significant payback potential, against which the lack of the tax advantage becomes less significant.

For more on the topic of tax benefits, see the Tax Benefits section.