No more tax policies with bonuses. Call for impeccable reform

Another round, another round: with each tax reform we return to talk about tax expenditures, a phenomenon that in recent years seems to have gotten out of hand by the legislator: in 2022 the MEF recorded 740 of them, for a cost equal to 128 billion, in constant increase in recent years. Among the various types, deductions and deductions (usually personal income tax) stand out, which reached 126 for a total of 44 billion in expenditure. Deductions and deductions are a perverse temptation for the Italian legislator: easy to implement, not very transparent, difficult to evaluate in their effects and useful for managing consensus micro-groups. It is not surprising that with every reform there are calls to reduce and rationalize these fiscal expenditures. Appeals destined to fall on deaf ears precisely because of the malignant attraction of these tools. If we can’t eliminate tax expenditures, then at least let’s change their nature to make them more transparent and more effective. If we want to transfer resources to certain groups of taxpayers, at least let’s not do it in the form of a deduction or deduction, because the very choice of this method generates specific problems. First of all, that of the incompetent: those taxpayers who, having an already very low income, have no tax to pay and therefore cannot take advantage of any discount. In general, deductions and deductions are not universal measures, because they leave out all those who do not have their own income or have it but are not subject to personal income tax. Furthermore, these measures are not very timely, since they function as a retrospective reimbursement. And a refund that is also very deferred over time: if, for example, a university student moves to rent in January 2023, the deduction to which he is entitled in relation to being rented will arrive in autumn 2024. This is a big problem for those who have not immediately had the necessary liquidity to make the choices they would like to encourage. And finally, these tax expenses generate great uncertainty in the taxpayer: it is difficult to understand which ones are entitled to and above all how much money one is entitled to.