Bolted machinery

The Land Agency includes the value of plant and machinery anchored to the ground or to the property in the calculation of cadastral income, with severe repercussions for companies

As industrial buildings are included in Italian land registry group D, the calculation of their cadastral income takes account of reconstruction costs.

For several years now, and most specifically since 2012 when Circular 6/2012 was issued by the Land Agency, some of the Agency’s regional offices have chosen to include the value of all plant and machinery that are in some way anchored to the ground or to the property (so-called bolted machinery) in the calculation of cadastral income.

The fact that the plant and machinery are considered equivalent to property enormously increases the cadastral incomes of industrial buildings and consequently the amounts of local taxes IMU and TASI that companies have to pay.

Confindustria Ceramica’s position is that plant and machinery should be excluded from the calculation of the cadastral income for the following reasons:

-    the income it generates derives from use in industrial activity and not from the real estate market,
-    it does not have a stable value over time because, unlike the building itself, it is subject to a process of physical and technological obsolescence;
-    it can be separated from the building without affecting the economic use of the property.

Confindustria Ceramica had hoped that the 2015 Stability Law would contain a regulation upholding its position, but unfortunately not only did it fail to do so but it approved a provision confirming the content of Land Agency Circular 6/2012 at a regulatory level.