Pos, stop the fines for those who do not accept electronic payments under 30 euros

Pos, stop the fines for those who do not accept electronic payments under 30 euros

Stop fines for those who do not accept electronic payments via Pos, by credit card and debit card, for receipts below 30 euros. This is established by the draft of the Budget Law, the first of the Meloni government, which cancels – starting from 2023 – the sanctions introduced on 30 June last (a fixed fine of 30 euros plus 4% of the denied transaction, without discounts even in the case of payment within 60 days of notification of the violation).

Within 180 days, the ministry will establish the “exclusion criteria in order to guarantee the proportionality of the sanction and to ensure the economy of the transactions in relation to the costs of the same”.

Traders and professionals, therefore, they will be able to claim the payment range up to 30 euros in cashin addition to those provided for by law and linked to the “objective technical impossibility” (the government has not specified what is meant by this formula: perhaps technical problems with the POS or lack of connection to the network).

Furthermore, last October 24, the Customs and Monopolies Agency exempted tobacconists from the obligation to accept electronic payments, “in relation to the sale of monopoly goods, postal values ​​and revenue stamps”.

The obligation for merchants and professionals to possess the POS was triggered on 30 June 2014: the Growth decree of the government led by the former Prime Minister Mario Monti of 2012 had foreseen it.

As for digital payments, Italy experienced a 22% increase after that of 24% in 2021. The use of contactless cards has grown by 49% and that of smartphones and bracelets by as much as 139%. However, Italy still remains third last in Europe, by number of electronic payments per capita (168 transactions against the average of 333 in the euro area), ahead only of Bulgaria and Romania. According to a 2021 Codacons estimate, “about 20% of merchants and artisans do not allow card payments”. The percentage is higher in Southern Italy and among professionals.

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Source: Vanity Fair