The 90 euros of the RAI fee are spread over 10 months, with the corresponding amount in the bill. After the November and December break, those 9 euros per month will return to the bill from January. And to stay there since, as it turns out to the Sole 24 Ore, the Government is not willing to intervene by bringing the rent off the bills.
The demands of Brussels
The fate of the Rai license fee, in the bill since this destination was prepared in 2015 by the Renzi government to counter the widespread tax evasion for public TV, ended up intersecting with Brussels after the Government in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan is on the one hand committed to increasing transparency in the electricity bill and, on the other hand, to eliminate, as required by the EU, the request for suppliers to collect “charges unrelated to the energy sector”, i.e. taxes not related to the sector energy. Among these cases, the discussion is open on the automatism that leads to the RAI license fee. There are no official indications, but the government has long since put a stone on the issue, averting a solution that would shake the wrists in the parts of Viale Mazzini.
The revenue from the canon
In 2020, rental income exceeded € 1.72 billion with ordinary rental income of € 1.64 billion. “From 2013 to 2020 the ordinary fee also dropped slightly,” said Rai CEO Carlo Fuortes last 12 October during a hearing in the Supervisory Commission, precisely on the issue (and on the emergency) accounts for Viale Mazzini. And on that occasion, speaking of the fee, Fuortes himself spoke of an “incongruous resource”, rattling off the amount of fees for public television in Croatia (127 euros), Switzerland (312 euros), but also – to stay with the most structurally close to Italy – in France (138 euros), the UK (185 euros) and Germany (220).
The highest revenues of 2021
In the first half of the year, according to the published half-year financial statements, for ordinary rents from private users, revenues settled at 857.6 million, up by 45.4 million compared to the half-year 2020, within the total revenue from license fees for 923 million (+53.7 million). The increase in the item relating to ordinary rents, which, as specified by the same financial statements, is largely due to the entry into force of regulatory provisions. In particular: “the repeal of the 5 per cent reduction in the sums to be paid to Rai to cover the cost of supplying the Public Service and the so-called” extra revenue “, determined by the higher revenues compared to what is foreseen in the Budget Status for the year 2016 ».
Fees for productive activities
On the other hand, for the fees from special users (from production activities), the Legislative Decree of 22 March 2021 n. 41, established “the full exemption from the payment for the year 2021 of the special radio and television subscription fee for accommodation facilities as well as the administration and consumption of beverages in public places or open to the public, including similar activities carried out by third party entities sector; the allocation of a sum equal to 83 million Euros in order to recognize to the interested parties a tax credit equal to 100% of the possible payment of the fee that occurred before the entry into force of the decree, or to arrange the transfer in favor of RAI of the sums corresponding to the lower revenues requested by the Company “.