(Finance) – “The 2023-25 maneuver confirms the positive guidelines on the balances of public finance announced in the NaDEF. The decision to keep the interventions planned for 2023 within limited margins with recourse to is positive debtaiming, in the medium term, at reducing the budget balance to below the 3% threshold and at a more rapid decline in the debt compared to what is proposed in the DEF”. This is what emerged from the document that the Court of Auditors presented today in hearing to the Joint Budget Commissions of the House and Senate, as part of the preliminary fact-finding activity for the examination of the 2023 Budget Law.
“Despite the limited time available – highlighted the accounting judges – interventions were prepared for significant amounts without recourse to a significant extent to new come in (except the measure on extra profits of companies in the energy sector) and identifying lower expenditure for considerable amounts. However, some elements remain uncertainty on the public finance framework modified by the maneuver. The intervention on energy costs, although of significant size (over 20 billion in 2023), is destined to exhaust most of the effects in the first quarter of the year. In the event of a persistent increase in prices and despite the revenue that would derive from the taxation of excess profits, the size of the requirement is represented by the difference with the amounts used during 2022.
In addition to the measures for energy (considering the amounts net of the tax effects for the de-indexation and for the de-contribution and replacement of the citizen’s income), the maneuver 2023 foresees further interventions for 18 billioncovered, in the first year, both with majors come in (mostly temporary, linked to energy surpluses), equal to 7.6 billion, than with minors expenses, equal to approximately 10.5 billion. In the following two years, the contribution of the savings on pension front and the review of Basic incomea limited increase in revenues is added and, above all in the final year, a substantial cut in expenditure (just under 16 billion, of which 5 in capital account), which allows us to foresee a surplus of around 5 billion.
The picture that emerges is, therefore, challenging. Also to implement, starting from next year, some addresses programmatic, important resources are being mobilized in a scenario that has not yet been clearly defined. The revision of the indexing system of pensions, in addition to contributing to the coverage of some measures that anticipate a more comprehensive reorganization of the regulatory framework, ensures increasing resources over the forecast period: a choice which, if it leads to a perceptible reduction in the “pension curve”, inserts further elements of uncertainty in a system that struggles to find a defined structure in an insurance sense and on whose redesign – which will be proposed – the sustainability of our debt depends to a significant extent. An uncertainty that also characterizes the future of the system of support for the weakest groups, of which the development of the most demanding aspect is not yet perceivable: effective assistance in finding job opportunities.
Some measures in revenue matter – the accounting judges continue – generate some perplexities. The good results of the last two years have made it possible to keep i accounts public, ensuring the sustainability of a redistribution process that has taken on significant dimensions. It is important to achieve significant improvements in terms of consistency taxplacing an effective action to contain tax evasion at the center of public objectives which, despite the results achieved, remains of considerable size.
As repeatedly underlined by the Court, to do this it is necessary to make full use of the various prevention and contrast measures, which can contribute to raising the levels of fiscal loyalty, favoring, through the use of technologies, the spontaneous emergence of tax bases and supporting the necessary action to control theTax administration; this also through the systematic use of financial data and, last but not least, an effective activity of collection. Some of the measures of the maneuver do not seem to go in this direction, which interrupt a process undertaken for the traceability of payments, which expand the area of revenues subject to the flat-rate regime or which propose favorable regimes which, if they allow for an increase in immediate revenue , mortgage future income.
Ultimately, the Court concludes, the picture that emerges is delicate and requests that, as soon as possible, the effects expected from the implementation of the Recovery plan and resilience. The definition of reforms for which the Government and Parliament have committed themselves on the fiscal, social security, welfare and functioning of public apparatus fronts, today represents an indispensable condition to which the new legislature is called.