F24 form: what is it and when is it necessary?

What is the F24 form? You have often heard of it, but you are not clear about what it is? You've come to the right place!

In this article, we reveal everything you need to know about the F24 form, a document used in Italy for the payment of taxes and contributions.

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F24 form: what is it?

As mentioned in the introduction, the F24 is nothing more than a form to be filled in for the payment of taxes and contributions to public bodies (State, Regions, Municipalities and Social Security Institutions).

Introduced by Law 326/2003, it is also called the unified form, since it allows the payment of sums due in a single operation, offsetting the payment with any credits.

To better understand how it works, let's look at a practical case. Let us suppose that a taxpayer is entitled to a credit from the tax agency, and that he has to pay IMU on his second home. The unified form gives the taxpayer the possibility to deduct the credit accrued on another front from the IMU payment.

The types of F24

There are four F24 models:

• Ordinary: the most common type, usable by all taxpayers for the payment of all taxes;
• Simplified: usable by all, it can only be used as an alternative to the ordinary one for certain payments (state, regional and local authority taxes, including Imu);
• Elide: this particular model is only used for special cases (i.e. when information is required that would be impossible to report in the ordinary F24 model);
• Excise: exclusively for the payment of excise duties and for payments pertaining to the Autonomous Administration of State Monopolies.

The payments envisaged

Here are the main payments of interest to taxpayers

• income taxes ( Irpef, Ires);
• contributions and premiums Inps, Inail , Enpals, Inpgi;
• withholding taxes on labour income and capital gains;
• VAT;
• Irap;
• Imu,
• regional and municipal Irpefsurtax ;
• Tari;
• Substitute tax on property sales;
• Inpdaprents ;
• excise, consumption and manufacturing tax;
• amounts due for repayment.

💡The F24 form is valid for both employees and VAT holders.

The fields of the form

Filling in the F24 always gives rise to some concern. A small mistake can cause major inconvenience. It is therefore essential to be very careful when filling in the form. To make the task easier for you, let us look in detail at the main fields to be filled in:

• Taxpayer: personal data, domicile and tax code must be entered . In particular, it is essential to ensure that the latter is entered correctly;
• Obligor: must be indicated, where applicable, together with the relevant identification code. This may be an heir, parent, guardian or receiver;
• Tax codes: indicate the type of tax to be paid. The codes are periodically updated on the Inland Revenue website;
• Reference year/period: to be entered in 4-digit format, it indicates the tax year. For taxpayers with a tax year that does not coincide with the calendar year, it is necessary to tick a specific box in the Taxpayer section, and indicate the first of the two calendar years concerned;
• Regions: for regional taxes only, in addition to the tax code and the reference year, enter the code of the region for which the payment is being made;
• Local taxes: for municipal taxes only, in addition to the tax code and the reference year, the cadastral code of the municipality for which the payment is being made must be indicated.

How are payments made?

F24 payments can be made either offline or online. For the latter case, let us now look in detail at all the methods involved.

Payment via home banking

If you want to avoid queues, you should know that all Italian banks offer the payment service directly online.

Once you have accessed your current account, you must go to the F24 forms section. Once you have clicked on it, an F24 form will appear, similar in all respects to the paper version. Once completed, all you have to do is authorise payment by entering a security code.

💡 Most banks also allow payment via a home banking app. Thus, you can pay conveniently with a smartphone.

Payment with Poste Italiane

With Poste Italiane, it is also possible to make payments without having a postal current account. On the poste.it website , you can also pay taxes, duties and fees by credit card or PostePay.

To access the service, you need to log in via SPID (Sistema Pubblico di Identità Digitale). At this point, you must select the F24 form, fill it in, and choose the payment method. After clicking on Pay Now, you will receive a digital receipt.

Payment via the Internal Revenue Service

Alternatively, it is possible to pay F24 directly on the website of the Internal Revenue Service, thanks to the F24WEB service .

To access the service, you need a SPID, an enabled smart card or a simple registration on the portal of the Agenzia Entrate. Once you have filled in the form, you can pay with a simple IBAN code. If the data entered is correct, you will receive a message confirming the payment within a few seconds.

☝ Online payment is now widely accepted by Italians. However, if you prefer a more traditional solution, you should know that it is still possible to fill in and pay F24 forms at the offices of the Internal Revenue Service, banks or post offices.

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Towards increasingly simple payments

With the gradual spread of digital tools, more and more users are choosing to make payments from the comfort of home. In fact, the F24 form allows payments of sums due to be made quickly and efficiently with just a few clicks.

And you, which side are you on? Do you prefer the dematerialised solution or do you prefer going to the counter?