Taxes: Small businesses pay more than web giants
In 2020, an annus horribilis for the Italian economy, our small businesses with less than 5 million euros in turnover paid 19,3
billion euros in taxes. In 2021, however, the 25 Italian branches of the main global web and software groups (WebSoft) have
paid to our treasury 186 million euros.
Although they are different years, this comparison shows that in the last year in which the data are available, our small entrepreneurs paid 19.1 billion more than web multinationals present in Italy. Amount, the latter, certainly undersized. When the tax revenue from small businesses for 2021 becomes available, the change will certainly be higher than that mentioned above. To say it is theResearch office of the CGIA.
The imbalance
The result of this comparison highlights a very evident contradiction: held up as being primarily responsible for the evasion,
the people with VAT numbers, on the other hand, pay a total amount of taxes 104 times higher to the main giants of the web who,
in the collective imagination, they represent success, innovation and the future.
The economic weight
The aggregate of subsidiaries belonging to the WebSoft sector recorded a turnover in our country in 2021 equal to 8.3 billion euros; the number of employees employed in these realities was equal to 23 thousand units and the Italian tax authorities have paid only 186 million euros.
I 3 million small businesses with less than 5 million in turnover, however, in 2020, the year in which many of them were even closed for many months due to Covid, they generated a turnover of 735.8 billion and the tax contribution paid to the Treasury amounted to 19.3 billion euros.
If the average level of taxation of big tech is, according to the Mediobanca research area, al 33.5 percentin our very small realities it is around the 50 percent: practically almost double. Now, no one is asking for an increase in the tax burden on large web companies, God forbid, if anything, it is necessary drastically lower the burden of taxes on small businesses which, even today, remains at unbearable levels.
Tax competition
What are the reasons why the subsidiaries present in Italy of the main multinationals of the web can benefit from a tax rate of 33.5 per cent? For the simple reason that around 30 percent of pre-tax profit is taxed in countries with subsidized taxation which gave rise to a cumulative tax saving which, in the period 2019-2021, was over 36 billion euros.
However, it is clear that the lack of fiscal “transparency” of these technological companies is a problem. A first solution could come from the application of one minimum tax with a tax rate of 15 per cent for multinationals with turnover exceeding 750 million euros.
The measure, introduced by a European directive of last December, will enter into force starting dal 2024 to ensure that large groups pay a minimum effective tax burden, limiting profit shifting and cross-country competition to charge lower rates. The measure will apply to any large group, both national and international, with a parent company or a subsidiary located in a Member State of the Union. The introduction of this measure should allow our treasury to collect 3 billion additional.
The Dutch case
However, it is not only the foreign giants of the web who are taking advantage of the advantageous taxation granted by many European countries. For some years, in fact, even some major Italian players have transferred the fiscal or registered officeperhaps only of a subsidiary, abroad.
Many of these have decided to move their registered office to Netherlandsfor example, because there it is possible to benefit from both a corporate legislation very favourable. Which allows historical shareholders to have double the votes in the meeting, a method that allows them to better defend themselves against possible takeovers from foreign investors. Possibly both of a generous tax treatmentwhich the Dutch government reserves for every big company willing to open its tax office in Amsterdam.
Small penalized
With these operations, formally impeccable from a fiscal-corporate point of view, however, the tax base of those who pay taxes in Italy. Penalizing, as we have seen, especially the small and very small businesses. Which, unlike large companies, do not have the possibility to leave their weapons and luggage and move elsewhere.