ROME – From the registration tax, to incentives, to fringe benefits, car taxation in Italy is holding back the growth of electric vehicles. This is supported by the environmentalists of the European NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) who underline in particular the primary role of company cars in road electrification and how an adequate tax reform applied to the sector could generate 1 billion euros of extra revenue in Italy for the State and the circulation of 600,000 more electric vehicles.
According to T&E, the tax reforms to be adopted are: the introduction of a registration tax based on the cost of the vehicle and on CO2 emissions; a review of fringe benefit taxes, supporting the employee who chooses cars based on their environmental impact and introducing a new low-tax category for zero-emission vehicles; full deductibility of the cost of electric vehicles for companies opting for a zero CO2 fleet. According to the calculation model used by the study, if applied simultaneously in the period 2023-2030, the suggested revisions could lead to the putting on the road of 606,000 more electric cars (almost four times as many as today’s total), an additional cut of a third of CO2 emissions (-4.3 million tons) and a 26% reduction in oil imports (-1.4 million tons) from the corporate sector and, lastly, an improvement in the tax balance of 1.1 billion of Euro.
Easier to electrify than private ones and capable of generating a second-hand market in a short time, company fleets represent, T&E points out, a strategic driving force for the acceleration of electric mobility. This is demonstrated by the United Kingdom, where the great differentiation in terms of taxation by emission class of fringe benefits has led to a 20% share of electric cars in company fleets, compared to the 6% currently recorded in Italy. T&E had also intervened on the subject last month with a study that compared the tax treatment of cars in 31 countries, highlighting an Italian taxation system substantially unrelated to any policy to reduce CO2 emissions, which places our country in the rear even compared to smaller markets such as Portugal, Romania and Hungary. For example, in France those who want to buy a car that releases more than 200 gCO2/Km get to pay up to 40 thousand euros in taxes, while in Italy the registration tax is disconnected from emissions.
Even on incentives, we are ”practically the only country in Europe – notes T&E – which provides for them for the purchase of vehicles with emissions of up to 135 gCO2/Km. The same ones that in France are taxed on purchase because they pollute”. The only tax parameter linked to the vehicle’s CO2 emissions is the taxation of the company car as a fringe benefit. But even here, as the T&E study shows, we could do more. A clear message from the government, underlines T&E, would facilitate the planning of industrial reconversion and offer support to companies which, like Stellantis, are committed to electrifying the entire production of Fiat-branded vehicles by 2030. ”Despite the fears of many, switching to electric vehicles won’t hurt jobs nationwide. The government – says the head of electric fleets of T&E Italia Elena Lake – has the opportunity to increase jobs at a local level with indirect support to an automotive sector that needs ambitious tax reforms for the electrification of corporate fleets” .