Garnished bank accounts: Municipality sentenced by the Court

Seized accounts of over 1,400 residents of Agrigento for unpaid taxes dating back as far as 10 years, judges are beginning to shake the “wild” collection activities carried out by some banks that the municipality had relied on.

The Court of Agrigento has ruled on the case of an elderly man, C.P., establishing an important principle regarding the limits of forced collection and the seizability of amounts credited to bank accounts, while also confirming the absence of supporting documents from the entity that could prove the actual validity of the requested taxes.

A central point of the decision in favor of the man, assisted by lawyer Pierluigi Cappello, concerns the applicability of the ten-year statute of limitations to payment notices that were not contested: according to the judge, the payment notice has the nature of an administrative act and cannot be equated to a final judgment. In the cases in question, the short statute of limitations remains valid, and among other things, the lack of evidence regarding proper notification (the municipality did not appear) and the passage of time rendered the executive title legally nonexistent.

The most innovative aspect of the ruling concerns the criteria for seizability of amounts deposited in banks. The Court clarified that there are differentiated protections depending on when the amounts (salaries or pensions) are credited in relation to the notification of the seizure. If the crediting of the amounts occurs before the seizure, they can only be seized for the amount that exceeds the triple of the social allowance. If, on the other hand, the crediting occurs on the date of the seizure or later, the limits apply to the fifth of the credited amount.

In the case examined, the amounts in Mr. C.P.'s bank account came from pension credits that occurred before the seizure. Since the total amount was less than the triple of the social allowance, the judge ruled that such amounts were not seizable.

Having established the non-existence of amounts assignable to the creditor and the nullity of the title, the judge declared the seizure and the entire enforcement procedure extinguished, ordering the immediate release of the amounts in favor of the debtor. The Municipality of Agrigento was also ordered to pay the legal costs, set at one thousand euros.

A ruling that potentially opens the door to numerous other rulings of the same kind, given the enormous number of people who have had their accounts seized.

Still on the topic of taxes and tax bills, the Order of Accountants of Agrigento has urged the mayors of the province to activate new regulations for the payment of local taxes without the application of penalties. The proposal, signed by President Calogero Dulcimascolo, aims to facilitate taxpayers in fulfilling their past tax obligations through the exclusion or reduction of penalties and interest.