After the words of the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, panic broke out: the government wants to introduce new taxes and raise excise duties. A godsend for the opposition who immediately resurrected Giorgia Meloni’s now famous 2019 video in which she railed against excise duties. «Today the Minister of Economy and Finance is not a banker, he is the son of a fisherman and a textile worker. I know how to distinguish who can make sacrifices and who cannot”, Giorgetti said today from the stage of the Pontida League rally. «I come here as the famous one because he wants to increase taxes. I simply said in an interview, answering a question about whether we wanted to tax the banks, that in my opinion everyone must make the sacrifices, citing Article 53 of the Constitution, based on who has the most ability to pay. I had clearly in mind what this government has done and what I have done in these two years. It is right that sacrifices are made by those who have the possibilities to make them. At this moment this government with great seriousness, because my job is not easy, is trying to translate a principle of common sense into facts. Rest assured and calm, those who are familiar with Pontida know that we are on the side of the people who work, who produce and who make sacrifices”, he added.
Yesterday the Ministry sent a note to the media: «With reference to the next economic measure, the guideline will be Article 53 of the Constitution (everyone is required to contribute to public expenses based on their ability to pay). As regards revenue, it means that an effort will be asked from larger companies operating in certain sectors in which profits have benefited in some way from favorable external conditions so that they contribute in ways which are being discussed. It is clarified that no new taxation for individuals is being studied while smaller companies are already interested in the biennial preventive composition agreement. Any other possible interpretations of Minister Giorgetti’s words are to be considered forced.” In short, no new tax, at least for individuals and smaller companies, at most we will ask for a contribution from large companies that have had extra income in recent years. And the minister himself had given the example of arms manufacturing companies which had an increase in turnover following the war in Ukraine.
Different discussion on excise duties. Here too there will not be an increase but in the catalog of environmentally harmful subsidies, drawn up by the Ministry of the Environment, on page 109 we read that «in Italy the excise duty applied for automotive diesel is lower than that of petrol and this does not justifications in environmental terms”. A question that the European Commission has also posed in a series of recommendations to Italy in which it asks to reduce environmentally harmful subsidies.
In the Structural Budget Plan, now being examined by Parliament, it is specified that in the “reorganization of fiscal expenditure” there is “the alignment of excise duty rates for diesel and petrol”. But what is meant by excise duty alignment? In practice, excise duties on petrol are cut by increasing it by the same amount (5.5 cents) for diesel. An operation that would have a double effect: keeping the total excise duties per liter of fuel unchanged, causing the State to collect around a billion euros more in revenue. This is because diesel sells almost three times more than petrol.
At this moment there is not yet a program on the measures of the budget law but something has filtered through. The government is apparently working on an intervention on minimum pensions to try to bring them above 621 euros. And, at the same time, the intervention implemented in 2023-24 which had taken them from 598.61 euros to 614.77 euros would be confirmed. In addition to this, there is also a mini-bonus in the works to convince those close to retirement to stay at work. Also because the so-called Maroni Bonus in 2024 was exploited by a few hundred people. The incentive would provide for the payment of contributions into the paycheck in exchange for the waiver of the crediting of those contributions to one’s amount on which the pension will be calculated.
Among the new features there is also bad news for smokers. The vice president of the Senate Domenica Castellone is apparently thinking, following input from a proposal from the Italian Association of Medical Oncology, of an amendment to the maneuver to increase the cost of cigarette packs by 5 euros. The increase could bring an injection of 13.8 billion euros to support the National Health Service.
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2024-10-06 22:48:35
