Prohibition of cash payment for remunerations and invalidity of pay slip signature as proof (Newsletter Norme & Tributi n. 125 – Camera di Commercio Italo-Germanica – Vittorio De Luca, Luciano Vella)

As established by the Budget Law 2018 (Law No. 205/17), effective 1st July, employers and private clients will have to pay to their workers wages/remunerations and any advance through traceable means. It will no longer be possible to pay by cash and this independently of the type of work relationship established. The law is clearly aimed at preventing money laundering (predicate offence of Legislative Decree 231) as well as to discourage any worker’s abuse. To this end, the Budget Law specifies that the signature applied by the worker on the pay slip no longer represents proof of payment of the remuneration. Therefore, effective from 1st July, the payment methods allowed will be only those established by the Budget Law, under penalty of administrative financial fines ranging from a minimum of EUR 1,000 to a maximum of EUR 5,000. And this links to the recent judgement of the Court of Cassation (judgement No. 25979/18) which states that in the case employees are forced to accept pay slips showing amounts lower than what it is contractually agreed, both the entrepreneur personally and the company are liable pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/01. Therefore, it would be appropriate to implement specific procedures to be included in Model 231 to trace the flow of the wages/remunerations paid.