The preventive seizure of accounts or other assets of the company, in proceedings for tax crimes, can severely hinder business operations even before definitive liability is established. The doubt does not concern only the investigated director: it is necessary to understand whether the measure affects the entity pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/2001, which tax profit is contested, and whether the blocked value is justified.
In this guide, I explain the prerequisites for the entity's liability for tax offenses, why a seizure does not coincide with a conviction, and which procedural paths deserve attention. The most important distinction is this: not every tax crime committed within a corporate setting automatically makes the company liable, but the encumbrance on its assets still requires a timely and well-founded reaction based on the notified decree.
When a tax crime can also involve the company
The liability provided for by Legislative Decree 231/2001 concerns the entity, meaning the company or other organization, and is distinct from the criminal liability of the individual. Article 5 requires that the crime be committed in the interest or to the advantage of the entity by a person who represents, administers, or directs it, or by someone subject to the direction or supervision of others. If the offender acts exclusively in their own interest or that of third parties, one of the central prerequisites for the entity's liability is missing. The general framework is governed by Legislative Decree 231/2001 on Normattiva.
The catalog of crimes matters. For tax offenses, it is not enough to generically evoke a tax irregularity. Article 25-quinquiesdecies includes, among others, fraudulent declarations through invoices or other documents for nonexistent transactions, fraudulent declaration by means of other artifices, emission of false invoices, concealment or destruction of accounting records, and fraudulent avoidance of tax payment. Unfaithful declaration, omitted declaration, and undue compensation instead become relevant for the entity only in the specific context of cross-border VAT fraud provided for by paragraph 1-bis, with a total damage of at least ten million euros. The updated text of the provision is set out in Article 5 of Legislative Decree 156/2022.
This delimitation produces an immediate practical consequence: the allegation must indicate the correct predicate offense. A charge brought against the individual may have criminal and tax relevance without falling, merely by existing, within the 231 catalog applicable to the company. Therefore, the allegation directed at the director must be distinguished from the one formally brought against the entity, verifying the cited article, the attributed conduct, and the prospective link with corporate interest or advantage.
Model 231 is not a formal document
When the crime is attributed to a person in a senior position, the organization and management model may become relevant pursuant to Article 6 of Legislative Decree 231/2001. Exemption does not depend solely on the existence of a document called model 231: the company must be able to argue that the model was adopted and effectively implemented prior to the event, that controls were entrusted to a body endowed with autonomous powers of initiative and control, that the offender fraudulently evaded the established rules, and that there was no omission or insufficiency of supervision by the oversight body.
Date and effectiveness make a difference. A model approved after the start of investigations does not prove, by itself, that suitable controls existed at the time of the conduct. This does not make it useless: subsequent organizational intervention may be meaningful for the future of the enterprise and for the measures to be adopted, but it does not retroactively transform a structure lacking controls into an already adequate one.
In tax offenses, the effectiveness of the system depends on concrete circumstances. Relevant factors may include, for example, the separation between those who choose suppliers and those who authorize payments, the traceability of checks on transactions, the effective powers of the administrative area, the management of delegations, and the possibility of reporting anomalies. It is not enough to indicate an abstract procedure if the contested conduct was made possible by practices incompatible with that same procedure.
If the act is attributed to an employee or a collaborator subject to the direction of others, the perspective changes. The discipline looks at the failure to observe direction or supervision obligations and does not automatically superimpose the position of the subordinate onto that of the director. Understanding who had the concrete power to decide, control, or prevent the transaction thus serves both to assess the charge against the individual and to delimit the one directed at the company.
What can be seized and why accounts are frozen
Preventive seizure aimed at confiscation seeks to preserve assets that could be confiscated at the end of the proceedings. In the 231 system, Article 19 provides for the confiscation of the price or profit of the entity's unlawful act and, when it is not possible to directly target such assets, the confiscation of sums or other assets of equivalent value. Article 53 allows the preventive seizure of confiscotable items according to this discipline. The freeze is a precautionary measure, not a definitive decision, but it can produce immediate effects on banking and commercial relations.
The profit, in tax crimes, can be identified as the economic advantage deriving from evasion, often described as expense savings. However, this does not authorize an undifferentiated encumbrance on the company's assets. The decree must clarify which crime is hypothesized, which profit or price is considered confiscatable, and why the identified assets can be subjected to seizure up to that value.
The quantitative limit is decisive. The seizure should not exceed the value of the contested profit, nor result in a duplication of the encumbrance when the same value is already targeted on other assets or against other subjects. The Court of Cassation, with judgment no. 6287 filed on February 17, 2026, specifically recalled the limit of the overall amount of profit and the prohibition of duplication of seizure in tax crimes committed in concurrence in the interest of a legal person. The principle is illustrated in the summary of the Court of Cassation judgment no. 6287/2026.
It is then necessary to distinguish the seizure ordered in the 231 proceedings from the seizure connected to the confiscation provided for the tax crime of the individual. An account in the company's name may also be involved when the prosecution claims it directly contains the profit of the tax crime. The legal basis indicated in the decree guides the defense: it changes how to contest the link between money, the hypothesized crime, the entity, and the frozen amount.
How to contest the preventive seizure decree
The first rule is not to limit oneself to the visible effect, meaning the unavailable balance of the account. One must start from the decree and its execution: which judge issued it, which crime is contested, whether the entity is investigated pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/2001, what amount has been calculated, and which assets have been identified. The reasoning of the measure is the starting point, because a seizure can be contested for the absence or insufficiency of the prerequisite, for the incorrect qualification of the act, or for excess value.
A review (riesame) is provided against the initial preventive seizure decree. The request must be submitted within ten days from the execution of the measure or from the different date on which the interested party became aware of it; the term is short and does not coincide with the time necessary to resolve the tax dispute on its merits. The procedural reference is given by Articles 322 and 324 of the code of criminal procedure, referred to in the text published by the Official Gazette on the seizure review procedure.
The review is not an anticipated trial. It does not serve to immediately obtain a judgment on innocence, but allows the encumbrance to be subjected to judicial control. Relevance may be assumed by the lack of an applicable 231 predicate offense, the absence of elements linking the act to the interest or advantage of the entity, the non-existence of the indicated profit, or a calculation that includes sums already recovered, non-pertinent, or already encumbered elsewhere.
If the encumbrance has already been confirmed, modified, or maintained with subsequent measures, different tools may come into play, such as precautionary appeal against ordinances regarding preventive seizure outside of review cases. The appeal does not automatically suspend the execution of the measure. The Constitutional Court reconstructed the distinction between the review of the initial measure and the appeal against subsequent measures on the encumbrance in the decision published in the Official Gazette on April 9, 2025. The choice of remedy therefore depends on the content and date of the act received.
Corporate accounts: which facts can change the response
A corporate bank account is not exempt from seizure simply because it is used to pay salaries, suppliers, or current taxes. However, this function can make it even more important to verify the proportion of the encumbrance and the exact origin of the sums. The operational necessity of the enterprise does not replace the legal prerequisite, but it does not allow one to overlook the concrete impact of an excessive seizure or one based on an incomplete reconstruction.
It may be relevant to verify whether the money is directly traceable to the contested profit, whether it flowed in after the hypothesized facts, whether the balance includes sums from extraneous sources, and whether there are already other seizures on the same value. Even payments made to the Revenue Agency, tax settlements, or repayment plans deserve attention because they can affect the quantification of the advantage that the prosecution still assumes to exist. Payment does not automatically result in release from seizure, but it may make it necessary to recalculate the truly targetable value.
It is equally important not to confuse the seized value with the entire tax debt. The precautionary measure must be connected to the profit or price of the unlawful act according to its regulatory basis, whereas tax, administrative penalties, interest, and sums already paid may have different nature and treatment. An amount presented as a single figure must therefore be broken down to understand which items it derives from and what the actual object of the seizure is.
For the first useful comparison, it is advisable to have the decree, the execution report, the relevant bank statements, the documents with which the charge was formulated, and the documentation demonstrating payments already made or the possible existence of other encumbrances. The chronology of events is essential: date of the contested conduct, date of bank flows, date of execution of the seizure, and date on which the entity effectively received knowledge of the measure can affect the defense and remedies.
Two levels to keep distinct: precautionary defense and corporate structure
The precautionary defense aims to verify whether the seizure should be canceled, reduced, or modified. The adaptation of the corporate organization instead addresses the problem of preventing insufficient controls from continuing to expose the entity. One plan does not replace the other: contesting the absence of the prerequisites of the encumbrance does not prevent correcting procedures and delegations, while organizational revision alone does not eliminate an already ordered seizure.
If the core of the accusation concerns invoices for nonexistent transactions, the issue may concern both the economic reality of the operations and the system that allowed the use of the documentation. If, instead, the concealment of accounting records is contested, the concrete availability of the documents, their reconstructibility, and the role of those who managed archives and accounting assume relevance. The same tax label can describe very different facts, and for this reason, the defense cannot be built solely on the name of the crime.
One mistake to avoid is treating the seizure as a simple banking problem. The bank executes the encumbrance ordered by the judicial authority; it cannot substitute itself for the judge in assessing its legitimacy. If the seizure interferes with mandatory obligations of the enterprise, the solution does not consist in bypassing the freeze, but in carefully assessing the available procedural tools and any measures requested from the competent judge.
Frequently asked questions
Does the company always bear responsibility if the director is investigated for a tax crime?
No. The investigation against the director is not enough by itself. For 231 liability, a crime included in the applicable catalog, a link with the entity's interest or advantage, and the further conditions provided by the discipline are required. The charge must therefore be read by separating the personal charge from the one formally directed at the company.
Can the seizure block the entire balance of the corporate account?
It can also affect the operating account, but the value of the encumbrance must remain connected to the profit or price indicated in the measure and cannot duplicate sums already effectively seized for the same value. The circumstance that the account serves business activity does not in itself exclude seizure, but makes it essential to verify proportion and quantification.
By when can I request the review of the preventive seizure?
The term is ten days from the execution of the seizure or from the different date on which the interested party became aware of it. It is necessary to establish when the seizure was executed or when you actually learned of it: formal notification is not always required for the time limit to start. For this reason, as soon as the decree is received, it is important to identify the date, recipient, and execution method.
Does paying the tax debt automatically release the accounts?
No, not automatically. Payment or an agreement with the Revenue Agency can affect the profit still confiscatable and make a recalculation of the encumbrance necessary, but release from seizure depends on the title of the measure, the sums already paid, and the content of the acts. One must not confuse the overall tax debt with the value subject to the precautionary measure.
Does a 231 model adopted after the seizure resolve the dispute?
It does not retroactively eliminate the problem. The organizational exemption concerns the setup existing prior to the contested conduct and its effective implementation. A model adopted afterwards can be useful to correct deficiencies and reduce future risks, but it does not prove by itself that the company already had suitable controls during the period subject to investigation.
Essential regulatory references
To navigate the measure, the main references are Legislative Decree 231/2001, Article 25-quinquiesdecies on tax offenses, and procedural rules on review and precautionary appeal. The seizure decree remains the decisive document: it is from that text that the title of the measure, the amount, the involved assets, and the remedy to be activated are derived.