A new personal income tax with three rates. Zero VAT for basic necessities. Stop communications in the months of August and December. But also mitigated criminal penalties for taxpayers who have found themselves unable to pay and for collaborating companies. The council of ministers has approved the fiscal delegation, which will frame the centre-right tax reform. And that promises to change the system and lay the foundations for tax cuts.
The premier, Giorgia Meloni, speaks of a “real turning point for Italy. It is an epochal, structural and organic reform – he said on social media -: a revolution that has been awaited for 50 years with important innovations in favor of citizens, families and businesses. With the new tax system, we outline a new idea of Italy, close to the needs of taxpayers and attractive to companies”.
“The new rules – explains the Ministry of Economy – will be operational within 24 months of the entry into force of the enabling law e they go in the direction of simplifying and reducing the tax burden, encouraging investments and hiring”. Already because on the business front there will be a gradual elimination of IRAP and a reduction of the current IRES rate for those who invest andor hire”. The reform aims to establish a relationship between taxpayers and the financial administration in the logic of dialogue. Thus the ‘tax friend’ takes shape. In which, however, the opposition and the trade unions, which are already evoking the square, see only pardons and favors for the richest.
“I’m pissed off – the CGIL secretary says bluntly, Maurizio Landini – I’m not into it anymore that it’s me who pays taxes even for those who don’t pay them, when they could pay more than me”.
In the meantime, the first stone has been laid. The provision, divided in 5 parts and 20 articles (in the last draft that entered the council the two articles dedicated to regional and local taxes are skipped), aims to redesign the entire system, from taxes to proceedings and sanctions, up to consolidated texts and codes.
To make it operational, the approval of the text-framework by the Parliament will be needed and then the passing of the delegated decrees which will also have to contain the appropriate financial ‘coverage’, which will in part be guaranteed by the revision of the current 600 tax expenditures: discounts, subsidies, bonuses which they will be reviewed.
The reform starts from the personal income tax revolution, with the reduction of the rates from 4 to 3. The two hypotheses not indicated in the delegation are: 23%, 27% and 43% or 23%, 33%, 43%.
It’s not flat tax for all remains an objective of the legislature, for employees comes the incremental flat tax. For businesses, the new two-rate IRES arrives to make those who hire and invest more pay less; the aim is then to gradually abolish Irap with priorities for partnerships, associated firms and partnerships between professionals.
There will be a two-year arrangement with creditors and a strengthening of collaborative compliance: “the rules of the fight against tax evasion are rewritten – says the MEF – which becomes preventive and no longer repressive”. The government also wants to overhaul the entire tax penalty system. In particular, for criminal sanctions, special attention will be paid to those who are unable to pay the tax due to facts not attributable to them: in assessing the “criminal relevance” of the fact, account will also be taken of cases in which agreements have been reached in administrative and judicial headquarters.
A lightening of the penal sanctions is also envisaged, in particular those connected to the crime of making unfaithful declarations, for companies that adhere to the ‘cooperative compliance’, and which have engaged in non-malicious conduct and promptly notify the tax authorities. Another “reward” effect for those who adhere to spontaneous compliance is the further reduction of administrative sanctions (which can go as far as complete non-application) for tax risks communicated in advance in a “timely and exhaustive” manner. The reform, claims the director of the Revenue Agency Ernesto Maria Ruffini, “is necessary”. And he adds: “as a citizen” I see as a “good sign” the fact that it is the “first time, in a long time, that a tax reform arrives at the beginning of the legislature”.
The majority defends the delegation compactly, with Fi at the forefront, who claims Berlusconi’s winning recipe: “it’s the starting whistle. Then they will have to follow the implementing decrees, it’s a job that has a legislature perspective”, underlines the president of the Azzurri deputies Alessandro Cattaneo. The oppositions instead raise the barricades. “It is nonsense to say that taxes are lowered for everyone”: in this way “we favor those who are better off, those with higher incomes will see greater gain”, the secretary of the Pd Elly Schlein goes on the attack. “It is a recessive reform”, the M5s leader Giuseppe Conte increases, ready to take to the streets with the unions.
ANSA Agency
Companies promote compliance, unions aim for the tax wedge (ANSA)