The expensive bills in 2020 led to an increase of 91.5 billion: according to the Mestre Cgia Research Office. last year Italian households and businesses suffered an increase in costs due to increases in electricity and gas bills estimated at 91.5 billion euros. If electricity costs increased by 109.5 percent, causing an extra cost of 58.9 billion in monetary terms, natural gas expenses increased by as much as 126.4 percent, “lightening” the wallet of Italians of 32.6 billion.
Geographically, the North-East is the area most affected by the increases: compared to 2021, the estimate of extra costs for electricity and gas has risen by 118.1 percent. Followed by the North-West with +116.6 per cent, the Center with +113.6 per cent and the South with +109.9 per cent. At the regional level, however, the most significant increases involved Emilia Romagna (+119.2 per cent), Friuli Venezia Giulia (+119 per cent) and Trentino Alto Adige (+118.3 per cent). In absolute terms, obviously, the most penalized regions were the most populated and most affected by the presence of economic activities, such as Lombardy (+20.8 billion), Emilia Romagna (+10.2 billion) and Veneto ( +10 billion euros).
But not everyone has lost out. Many energy companies, for example, experienced a frightening increase in revenues in 2022. For this reason, the Draghi government took steps to establish the solidarity contribution which was to allow the state coffers to collect a total of 10.5 billion euros from this measure. After the balance of last November 30, however, the treasury has “received” only 2.7 billion euros. Therefore, among the 44.5 billion extra revenue provisionally collected in the first 11 months of 2022, another 7.8 billion euros are certainly missing. The Court of Auditors has tried to identify the reasons for this flop, pointing out these critical points, namely: the identification of the subjects to whom the contribution applies; method of determining the tax base; possible problems of constitutionality of the tax (in this regard, judgment no. 10 of 11 February 2015 concerning the so-called Robin Hood Tax is recalled); the non-deductibility of the tax; the possible transfer of the contribution to the final consumer. Net of the reasons raised by the recipients of the measure, the Revenue Agency has done well to announce in recent days that in the coming months it will launch targeted checks on the extra profits made by these large energy companies