The "Poste Italiane Group's Tax Strategy" represents a set of principles and rules aimed at promoting the dissemination of values of honesty, fairness and compliance with tax regulations. To this extent, it encourages the development of co-operative and transparent conducts towards the Italian Tax Authorities and third parties, in order to minimize any substantial impact in terms of both tax and reputational risk.
The Tax Strategy, which is also one of the required elements for the inclusion of the Group in the main sustainability indices, provides for a governance model which ensures that:
- the Top management is informed about the tax consequences deriving from all the strategic and operational business transactions, planned and to be implemented, thus ensuring that any decision related to tax matters is consistent with the Group's tax strategy;
- the Tax Function is involved in the preliminary assessment of the tax consequences arising from the above - mentioned transactions.
Poste Italiane liaises with the Group companies in order to ensure that these latter operate in compliance with the current tax legislation and in line with the Group risk management and control system.
Poste Italiane's tax revenue for the year 2021 was 2 billion euros. Poste Italiane operates in Italy and pays taxes in Italy.
Fiscal transparency policies
As previously stated when it entered the Collaborative Compliance regime, the Poste Italiane Group is committed to establishing relations with tax authorities that are based on the utmost transparency and cooperation, undertaking to:
- communicate in a clear and transparent manner to the Revenue Agency any changes in the tax strategy, in the medium/long-term tax planning and the possible risks related to the most relevant transactions;
- provide correct, accurate and timely information and respond promptly to questions and requests for information received by the Revenue Agency;
- resolve any problems in a timely manner prior to the filing of tax returns, and, if differences subsequently arise, work out an agreement with the Revenue Agency to resolve them.
Tax Risk Managment
During 2021, an update of the Tax Risk Assessment was carried out, which entailed a review of Poste Italiane’s tax risks, both in terms of existing risks and their assessment, as well as an update of activities and the related controls, partly in order to exploit potential synergies with other control systems within the Company. In general, the review of the Tax Risk Assessment covered the following points:- update of the tax risk map due to changes in tax legislation, the review of risks with a view to continuous improvement;
- update of the qualitative/quantitative assessment of tax risks, in line with the risk assessment methodology developed in 2020;
- update of the activities and related controls identified to mitigate tax risks in response to changes in tax legislation, organisational changes and process changes taking place in the period, any shortcomings in the design of controls identified during testing or with a view to continuously improve in order to ensure the efficiency and harmonisation of Poste Italiane’s existing control systems, while increasing the awareness of control owners regarding the methods of carrying out controls.
In FY 2021, the monitoring was carried out on the controls governing the risks envisaged within Poste Italiane’s tax risk management and control system, consistently with that defined in the 2021 – 2023 Monitoring Plan and in line with the methodology adopted.
For further details regarding the Group's fiscal performance in 2021, please refer to the attached document on the Group's country-by-country fiscal reporting.
