Il fatto, l'assoluzione e i due processi

The legislator recently intervened with Article 21-bis of Legislative Decree No. 74/2000 to clarify a crucial point in the relationship between criminal proceedings and tax proceedings: how to assess, in the latter, the determination of the non-existence of material facts committed in the former. The new legislation was followed by a heated debate, with two referral orders to the Constitutional Court and multiple, contradictory rulings from the Fifth Section of the Court of Cassation, culminating in the order of the United Sections suspending the proceedings pending the outcome of the constitutional review, culminating in interpretative ruling No. 50 of 2026. To clarify the many questions examined by the Court, the paper first reviews the most significant passages of the ruling itself, then focuses on the issues it was unable to address and aspects that may open up new debates.