In Italy, through a 'corporate' evolution, the tax authorities use balance sheet ratios to assess the possibility of tax debt accrual Remarkable development

Abstract Financial ratios have always been widely used within companies to understand the company's financial situation. These ratios have also been used and are still used today by organisations outside companies when the need arises to understand a company's financial performance. Let's consider using ratios by banks, lenders, and companies to evaluate potential customers, etc. In Italy, for some years now, the tax authorities have also been using such tools to assess the possibility of granting an instalment to a taxpayer who finds himself in temporary difficulty in meeting his tax debt. This is a development by the tax authorities, but, as used in Italy, this instrument poses theoretical problems that perhaps the legislature has not weighed up sufficiently. In this article, we will address what the law provides for this issue and the inconsistencies in using a financial index to assess the instalment of tax debt. Keywords: ratios, ratios and taxes, ratios and taxation, quick ratio and tax debt accrual in Italy.