(Finance) – Tax breaks continue to increase both in number and in overall amount, even if the average benefit for the taxpayer is “very low” for the taxpayer compared to what happens in other European countries. This is what emerges from data illustrated by the Director General of Finance of the MEF, Giovanni Spallettaduring a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.
“Between 2021 and 2022, tax expenditure went from 592 to 626 items – reported Shoulder – there hasn’t been a trend investment in the past but on the contrary a continuous and permanent increase. In 7 years between 2016 and 2022, 182 new entries arrived and therefore they grew by more than 40%. Compared to other OECD area countries – he underlined – Italy is characterized by particularly significant overall amounts both in terms of eligible expenses and in terms of impact on public finances in terms of revenue reduction”.
In the period 2017-2023 “the lower revenues attributable to tax breaks represent on average 6% of GDP with a tendentially increasing trend: ranging from +5% in 2017 to +6.3% in 2023” reported the Finance chief explaining that the amount of total revenue loss has increased by 43% from 87.3 billion in 2017 to 125.6 billion of lower revenue in 2023. Despite this, Spalletta underlined again, “in Italy the amount of average benefit per taxpayer is very low compared to other countries, and in particular compared to other European countries. More than half of tax expenditures cost less than 10 million euros. Which means that there is a clear pulverization that limits the average taxpayer benefit. This – he continued – leads us to say that most of the subsidies do not have a systemic nature but are fragmented and do not respond to programmed criteria of rationality or equity”.
In this scenario, what emerges is the cost of the superbonus and other building bonuses was “much higher than expected” reaching 110 billion euros of which 61 only for the Superbonus. A “partial” figure, however, because “we don’t yet have all the data for 2022 – he said Shoulder –. The monitoring of Enea’s data has shown that taxpayers have benefited from the concessions to a much higher extent than expected, with consequent higher costs compared to the resources foreseen on the occasion of the introduction of the concession. In the update of the trend forecasts included in the Nadef – he added – the estimate of the Superbonus and other building bonuses was increased to 110 billion euros with an overall deviation of 37.75 billion compared to the initial forecasts as regards the whole time horizon. In particular, the forecasts relating to the Superbonus amount to 61 billion and those on the facade bonus to 19 billion. For the years 2023-2026, the higher charges have led to a worsening of the forecasts of direct taxes for amounts between 8 and 10 billion euros each year”.
For the Chief Executive Officer of Finance “the fact that the conflict of interest between the client and the contractor has ceased has meant that there has been an unjustified increase in prices in many cases and this already in itself leads to an intolerable distortion, then fraud phenomena have been added which made the situation worse”.