News · Business taxation · – 14 October 2026

Delegation of signing authority filed at the appeal hearing is late: the assessment fails

TOPIC
Court of Cassation: a delegation of signing authority filed at the appeal hearing is late; the new art. 58 of Legislative Decree no. 546/1992 applies to cases whose first-instance proceedings were brought on or after 5 January 2024.

By judgment no. 26868 filed on 14 October 2026, the Fifth Civil Division of the Corte di cassazione (Italian Court of Cassation) set aside the appeal decision that had admitted a delegation of signing authority for two notices of assessment (avvisi di accertamento) issued under the accertamento sintetico (assessment of income inferred from the taxpayer’s overall spending). The Agenzia delle Entrate (Italian Revenue Agency) had produced the delegation only at the oral hearing of the appeal. Ruling on the merits, the Court allowed the taxpayer’s initial appeals. The starting point is art. 42, paragraphs 1 and 3, of Presidential Decree (d.P.R.) no. 600/1973: a notice not signed by the head of the office is null and void unless there is a valid delegation to an official of managerial grade (carriera direttiva). Where the delegation has been disputed from the initial appeal onwards, the burden of proving that it exists lies with the tax authorities, in line with the case law of the Court of Cassation cited in the judgment itself. Under art. 58 of Legislative Decree (d.lgs.) no. 546/1992, as worded before d.lgs. no. 220/2023, new documents were admissible on appeal subject only to the time limit in art. 32, paragraph 1, that is, up to twenty clear days before the hearing date. Filing at the hearing is out of time, and the failure to prove the signatory’s authority in good time renders the notice null and void. The Court expressly distinguishes the case decided by order no. 19525/2025, which allows the delegation to be proved even after the first-instance proceedings but does not address the issue of the time limit.

The principle governs cases whose first-instance proceedings were brought on or before 4 January 2024. Legislative Decree no. 220/2023, which entered into force on that date, reworded art. 58: new documents are admitted on appeal only if the court considers them indispensable for its decision or if the party shows that it could not produce them in the first-instance proceedings for reasons not attributable to it. The new paragraph 3 laid down an absolute prohibition on filing delegations of signing authority. By judgment no. 36 of 27 March 2025, the Corte costituzionale (Italian Constitutional Court) struck down that prohibition and held that the new rules apply to appeals in cases whose first-instance proceedings were brought after the decree entered into force. For initial appeals served on or after 5 January 2024, a delegation produced on appeal is a new document subject to paragraph 1, as well as to the time limit in art. 32. In our view, where the defect was raised in the initial appeal, it will be hard to argue that the late production was due to reasons not attributable to the tax authorities; that leaves the indispensability test, on which, as far as we are aware, the Court of Cassation has not yet taken a settled position. How this fits with arts. 7-bis and 7-ter of Law no. 212/2000 remains an open question: with effect from 18 January 2024, those provisions confine nullity to an exhaustive list of cases and treat other defects as rendering the act voidable (annullabilità).

IN PRACTICE
Counsel should first establish the date on which the initial appeal was served, since it determines the applicable regime, and, where the signatory is not the head of the office, should raise the lack of delegation specifically in the initial appeal, as required by art. 7-bis, paragraph 2, of Law no. 212/2000. At every stage, counsel should check the filing date of the delegation in the electronic case file and object to its late filing in the explanatory brief (memoria illustrativa) or, if it is produced at the hearing, have the objection entered in the minutes of the hearing. In cases whose first-instance proceedings were brought on or before 4 January 2024, an appeal judgment that admitted a late delegation can be challenged by an appeal on points of law to the Court of Cassation for infringement of arts. 32 and 58 of d.lgs. no. 546/1992 and art. 42 of d.P.R. no. 600/1973.

Summary note by the CommercialistiAvvocati network, based on specialised legal and practice sources. The text does not reproduce original contributions and does not constitute professional advice.

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