Excise duties on gasoline, will they be cut or not? How the mobile anti-increase excise duty works – Corriere.it

Mobile excise could (re)come back. During question time in the Senate, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti spoke of a possible assessment of the cut in excise duties if petrol and diesel prices rise further. One of the hypotheses under study is the introduction of the so-called mobile excise duty which can be modulated according to price trends. But what is it in detail and why are we talking about it now that fuel prices have risen above 2 euros per litre?

The blaze of early January

Let’s go in order. In early January, we saw a spike in retail petrol and diesel prices. The increases are partly linked to the Meloni government’s decision not to extend the discount on excise duties wanted by the Draghi executive and which has cost the state 1 billion a month since last March. The price at the pump soared in a few weeks, with the government pointing the finger at the managers accusing them of speculating. According to the Minister of Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, there are 4,000 petrol stations who do not inform the ministry of the daily prices charged to motorists.

How the mobile excise works

Net of the controversy, let’s talk about a price that is calculated by putting together several elements: the price of product, excise duty and VAT calculated on the sum of the first two items. In the latest government decree – in addition to the extension of the company petrol bonuses of 200 euros – it was established that, in the presence of an increase in the cost of oil and therefore with a relative increase in VAT, the higher collection of the State in terms of tax could be used to finance reductions in the final price. Reductions that could be implemented thanks to the mobile excise mechanism, in fact a tax cut that is “covered” by the higher earnings of the state thanks to the record VAT. How does it work? When the price of fuel increases, the corresponding excise duty decreases proportionally, becomes “mobile” and no longer fixed. In this way, the increases in the selling price are no longer passed on to those who refuel but, if anything, they are passed on to the state coffers.

The previous one: Bersani’s idea

It is a measure conceived fourteen years ago by the then Minister of Economic Development Pier Luigi Bersani, a member of the Prodi II government (2006-2008). Giorgetti said in the Senate that the government will be able to evaluate maintenance and updating of the discipline introduced by article 1, paragraphs 290 and 291 of law 244 of 2007. The reference therefore to the 2008 budget which states that with a decree of the minister of the Economy to be adopted every three months the excise duties on fuels can be decreased in order to compensate for the higher revenues of the value added tax deriving from the variations in the international price, expressed in euros, of crude oil. The mobile excise duty, which decreases as prices rise, would be triggered only if the price increases by an equal or greater amount, on the average for the period, by two percentage points with respect exclusively to the reference value, expressed in euros and which is indicated in the Def. Last March, Environment Minister Roberto Cingolani also promoted the introduction of a similar system. It was a possible solution to the price increases following the outbreak of the energy crisis linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The mobile excise instrument was designed by the Prodi government precisely to deal with emergencies linked to high oil prices. And now it could come back: How to sterilize any increases in VAT – Urso explained – will be one of the topics of the decree law that you will see published in the Official journal.