Meloni wants an enabling law on taxation: “Fighting tax evasion before it happens”

In a long interview with Only 24 hoursGiorgia Meloni summarily retraced the salient points of her programme, addressing the nodes and pitfalls that lie ahead in government action: with particular attention to tax management and measures in favor of businesses. A time schedule that starts from today’s European Council and reaches the symbolic date of 2026, the maximum limit within which the Pnrr projects must be implemented.

Tax measures and the fight against tax evasion

The first of the areas in which the premier hopes for a change is the relationship between the taxman and the taxpayer. Reviewing the fiscal policies of recent years – “systems that are ineffective and focused on collection, without obtaining significant results” – he announces that he is working on a “delegated law” which “will affect all sectors of taxation”. The goal is clear: “to fight tax evasion before it even occurs, by having the financial administration talk to the citizens in a preventive way”. Both for small businesses and for multinationals: for both we will try to encourage the “comparison with the Revenue Agency”.

Public debt

For Giorgia Meloni “at the moment the Italian financial situation is under control”: but in any case it remains for the premier the need to “reduce dependence on foreign creditors, by increasing the number of Italians and residents of Italy who hold shares of debt”. In this sense, he speaks of joint work with the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, to “safeguard our debt from new financial shocks and attract the confidence of savers and investors, even in the medium term”.

The response to Biden’s Wrath

For businesses, a joint response to Biden’s anger remains a priority, whose protectionist approach plays against European competitiveness. But Giorgia Meloni warns: “We must not create a European Inflation Reduction Act in response to the US inflation law”. “The main road is the strengthening of the transatlantic dialogue, which favors the coordination of the economic policies of the two areas, European and American”. And on state aid: “The easing risks creating a process of harmful competition between member states with different fiscal capacities”; the “level playing field” must therefore be guaranteed. The solution for the premier is the adoption of a sovereign fund, “to support investments and protect sovereignty”: an ambitious program, which must be supported immediately with a “maximum flexibility in the use of the funds available for the Pnrr”.

Delays on the Pnrr

Precisely on the Pnrr one of the most complicated panoramas for government action seems to lie ahead. According to some rumors, more than half of the projects will fail to be implemented by 2026, the maximum limit set by Europe. To the Italian structural deficiencies, harbingers of delays and bureaucratic hitches, Meloni will respond with control rooms, where “the most appropriate ways to reprogram the Plan” will be re-evaluated. However, reiterating that “the intermediate times may be revised without prejudice, at the moment, to the final date of 2026”.

Citizenship income: how will it be revised?

On the measure introduced by the Conte 1 government, the premier is very clear: “It has failed all the objectives for which it was born, it has not abolished poverty and has not created jobs”. Consequently, you underline the need to replace it with “concrete measures to combat poverty”: it will take the form of a “tool that will accentuate the concept of active inclusion and that will replace and improve active employment policies”.

Demographic winter

The long article by the New York Times, whose title with an evident alarmist tone summed up the seriousness of the Italian demographic problem: “Italy: destined to disappear?”, read in large letters. Meloni, explicitly referring to the piece, underlines what in his opinion are the essential points in the fight against the falling birth rate, “fromincrease of the single check at the VAT reduction for baby productsfrom the strengthening of parental leave at subsidies and interventions to help young people under 36 to buy a house”. A maneuver that, overall, is worth one and a half billion euros.