Entertainment expenses and advertising expenses are separated from the objective pursued. The Cassation 2017 intervenes on this point
Revenue and Taxes – 28 December 2017
The costs of organizing medical conferences, incurred by companies in the pharmaceutical field, whose purpose of providing scientific information is not obvious, are not deductible from corporate income, nor is the VAT deduction instrument applicable. In this sense the Court of Cassation, with order no. 28695 of 30 November 2017, decided on a case that saw a pharmaceutical Srl and the Revenue Agency pitted against each other.
In the case in question, the Revenue Agency appealed to the Supreme Court complaining that the expenses incurred by the Srl to hold scientific information congresses for doctors were attributable to advertising expenses that the company would have incurred to sponsor its product and not, as mere entertainment expenses. 
Also according to the agency, the erroneous classification of expenses would therefore be due to a violation and false application of art. 19-bis1, paragraph 1, lett. h), DPR VAT and art. 108, paragraph 2, TUIR.
The Court also observed that in the previous levels of judgement, the scientific nature of the conference itself had not been properly assessed.
With regard to the issue addressed by the Court, we recall that the jurisprudence had already clarified in the past that:
- for entertainment and advertising expenses the prerequisite should be identified in the objectives pursued by those who have endured them, bearing in mind that they have the purpose of increasing the prestige of the company and enhancing its development.
- Land advertising or promotional costs instead they are those supported, even if not in full, for the advertising of products, brands and services, attributable to the company itself.
On the basis of these guidelines, ordinance no. 28695/2017 of the Court of Cassation established that «…purpose of scientific information is to mark the only advertising allowed, considering that the consumption of medicines is not regulated by the criterion of pleasure, but by utility, mediated by the medical profession…».
Related news. Court of Cassation - Civil Ord. Section 5 No. 28695 Year 2017
Note: “The consumption of medicines is not regulated by the criterion of pleasure, but by that of utility, mediated by the medical profession, so that doctors are the recipients of a specific form of advertising which aims not at abstractly advertising the product by praising its virtues or pleasantness view of the package, but to inform them of the nature and pharmaceutical uses of the product, in which cases it is indicated, in which it is not and in which it is even harmful (see Cassation n. 25053 of 2006; see also see Cass. no. 8844 of 2014; Cass. no. 2349 of 2013; Cass. no. 5494 of 2013)"
