In the latest version of the Aid decree, the one-off contribution on extra-profits is not limited to swelling from 10 to 25% and doubling in the payments of June and November. But it also updates the calculation bases and therefore requires energy companies to redo the accounts as soon as they are finished to measure the provisions to be put in the approved budgets by 30 April.
The system remains the one, much disputed by the directly concerned, written in the decree of 21 March which introduced the extraordinary contribution, and tries to identify the “extra-profits” in the difference between the VAT accrued by companies in the winter of 2021-22 compared to twelve months earlier. In the first version, for obvious calendar reasons, the reference period was identified in the semester between 1 October and 31 March. The latest draft of the Aid decree broadens the reference base by one month, thus asking to compare the VAT balance for the period 1 October 2021-30 April 2022 with that of October 2020-April 2021.
Tax base update
The text, which is still awaiting publication in the Official Gazette also because it has to complete some tiles in the complex mosaic of financial regulations, therefore confirms the update of the tax base anticipated in recent days by the Sole 24 Ore.
With the effect of imposing on companies the return on calculations without changing the nature (and the problems) of the mechanism. Two, above the others: the VAT base does not travel exactly in parallel with the share of profits inflated by inflation, because it is influenced by many other variables.
And even with the new calendar, the calculation continues to compare two very different periods in terms of the economic health of the country, and therefore of energy consumption: the last quarter of 2020 closed with a GDP contracting by 1.9%, against the + 0.6% recorded in the final three months of 2021. The first quarter of last year instead marked a + 0.3%, to be compared with a start of this year that the preliminary Istat estimates indicated a -0 , 2% but which could be revised upwards with the definitive calculations also for the (recovering) services sector. There remains, then, the non-deductibility for the purposes of Ires and Irap of what the government calls an “extraordinary contribution”.