The payment calendar: monthly withholdings and the substitute tax on severance pay

On 16 December 2026 a trattoria in Parma, a limited company with four employees, files an F24 carrying two different debts: the tax withheld from wages paid in November, and the advance on the substitute tax on severance pay (TFR). The fund's 2025 revaluation came to 1,200 €, and the advance is 183.60 €. The adviser is on holiday, and the owner wants to know where that figure comes from.

The monthly deadline for withholdings

For tax withheld on wages and on professional fees alike, the Agency's pages apply one rule: the agent pays it over by the 16th of the month following the payment. What counts is the month in which the money actually left the account, not the month the salary relates to, nor the invoice date.

When the 16th falls on a Saturday or a public holiday, paying on the next working day is on time. In 2026, for instance, 16 May is a Saturday, so tax withheld on April payments is due by Monday 18 May. The carry-over only ever moves the date forward, never back.

The channel is fixed. For employers and agents holding a VAT number, payment on form F24 must be made electronically. A limited company or a sole trader with a VAT number cannot walk into a bank branch with a paper F24 for these amounts.

Applied to wages, the rule reads like this: October's salary paid on 5 November produces tax to pay by 16 December, and November's salary paid on 27 November also produces tax due by 16 December. Two different months of pay can end up in the same payment.

The reverse holds too: a month with no payments produces nothing to pay over. If the studio pays neither wages nor fees in August, there is no withholding to settle in September. The calendar follows payments, not the mere passing of months, and an empty line in the ledger is worth noting rather than a sign of neglect.

The deadline does not depend on the amount. A few euros withheld from a consultant's fee are due on the same 16th as thousands withheld from wages. Holding back small sums to add them to next month's payment turns a timely payment into a late one.

Form F24: the Treasury section and tax codes

The Agency's page on the most common F24 cases splits the form into sections. Withholdings go in the Treasury section, the sezione Erario, together with IRPEF, corporate income tax and VAT. Regional taxes such as IRAP and the regional IRPEF surcharge go in the Regions section; municipal taxes in the section for IMU and other local levies.

Every line in the Treasury section carries a tax code saying which debt the money settles. For tax withheld on self-employed fees the Agency's page gives code 1040. The codes for tax withheld on wages appear in the Agency's tax code tables, which this course has not read and does not quote.

A wrong code does not make the money disappear, but it assigns it to another debt. For a small agent the simplest safeguard is an F24 template set up once, with the recurring lines already in place, whose amounts are updated each month.

The substitute tax on TFR revaluations

An employer sets aside severance pay, the TFR, every year and revalues the fund already built up. A substitute tax replacing income taxes falls on that revaluation, not on the year's new provision. The Agency's page places it on the employer or pension body, at a rate of 17 %.

The tax does not apply to TFR shares paid in full into a supplementary pension scheme. That money does not stay with the employer and is not revalued there, so there is no base to tax. A company whose employees have all joined a pension fund carries no such debt.

How the revaluation itself is computed, with a fixed element and one tied to the ISTAT price index, is explained in the TFR course and its calculator. This module takes the revaluation as a known figure, because the monthly ISTAT index has not been read from a served source.

Advance in December, balance in February

The tax is paid in two instalments. The advance is due on 16 December each year, under tax code 1712. The balance is due on 16 February of the following year, under code 1713. The Agency's page adds that these dates stay the same when an employment relationship ends during the year.

For the advance the page offers two methods, and the first matters most for the calendar. The historical method starts from a closed figure, the previous calendar year's revaluation: take 90 % of it and apply 17 %. In December 2026, then, the work is done on the 2025 revaluation.

The forecast method estimates the current year's revaluation instead, again at 90 %, and suits employers expecting a sharply smaller fund. Its base, and the case of a business whose employment contracts have all ended before December, are developed in the dedicated TFR course.

For whoever keeps the calendar, the choice of method has a practical effect: under the historical method December's amount is known from January, because last year's revaluation is already closed. It can be set aside in the cash plan well ahead, instead of being discovered in mid-December.

The balance is worked out at year end by applying 17 % to the revaluations accrued in the year, and is paid net of the advance. A generous advance leaves a small balance; an advance computed on a leaner year leaves a larger balance to make up the difference.

The page allows offsetting on the F24 against credits arising from other taxes or contributions. It also allows using the credit from the advance levy on severance payments under law 662 of 1996, up to the tax due, and that offset does not count towards the annual offsetting ceiling.

A year on one page

The calendar has one quirk: February and December are the heaviest months. In February the substitute tax balance comes on top of the tax withheld on January payments; in December the advance comes on top of the tax withheld on November payments. The cash plan should expect it.

A small agent needs no software to keep this calendar. A ledger with one line per payment, showing the date, the recipient, the gross amount and the tax withheld, plus a second table of the year's fixed dates, is enough. In February that payment ledger becomes the basis for the certificates.

The first year with an employee

A first-time employer discovers the calendar piece by piece. The first payslip creates the first withholding, due on the 16th of the following month. The substitute tax on TFR arrives much later, because it needs a fund to revalue, and in the first year there is none yet.

The Agency's page revalues the fund held on 31 December of each year, leaving out the TFR accrued during that same year. For a business hiring in 2026 the fund on 31 December 2025 is zero: there is no revaluation in 2026, hence no tax, and under the historical method the December 2027 advance rests on that zero result.

The first substitute tax payment therefore comes with the February 2028 balance, computed on the 2027 revaluation of the amount set aside in 2026. This is not a relief, just the mechanics of the fund. Knowing it avoids hunting for a debt that does not exist yet, and forgetting it once it appears.

Reconciling payments, CUs and the 770

The calendar leaves three traces of the same money. During the year, the F24s show what was paid over month by month. In March, the CUs show what was withheld from each recipient. In the autumn, the 770 or the simplified system sums up the year's withholdings. All three must tell the same story.

The most useful check comes before the certificates go out. Add up the tax withheld across all the CUs prepared and compare it with the total of the withholding lines paid on F24s for that year's payments. If the totals differ, a payment has been missed, a transfer forgotten or a withholding certified wrongly.

Mind the year boundary. Tax withheld on December payments is paid over in January of the next year, yet it belongs to the year being certified. The comparison must be made by month of payment, not by F24 date; otherwise December looks missing on one side and surplus on the other.

• Total tax withheld in the year's CUs, recipient by recipient
• Total tax paid over on F24s, grouped by month of payment, January to December
• List of payments made without withholding, for example to flat-rate professionals, with their statements
• Advance and balance of the TFR substitute tax, which stay out of the CUs but belong in the calendar

If the check reveals a missed payment, the debt stays open and must be put right. Voluntary settlement of a late payment, the ravvedimento operoso, has its own calculator in the catalogue; this course does not quote its rates, which should be checked before paying.