Messina Court annuls TARI tax assessment and sanctions

The Court of Tax Justice of first instance in Messina has annulled a multi-year TARI (waste tax) assessment issued by the Municipality of Messina against a Third Sector entity. The ruling, sentence no. 5963/2026, addressed two primary legal issues: the improper accumulation of sanctions for failure to declare and the incorrect calculation of the taxable surface area.

The court ruled that sanctions for omissions spanning multiple years cannot be automatically summed in full when the requirements for legal accumulation under Article 12 of Legislative Decree 472/1997 are met. Additionally, the court rejected the municipality's automatic use of 100% of the cadastral surface area, citing the 80% reduction criterion established by Article 1, paragraph 646, of Law no. 147/2013.