Ruffini to Salvini: “Fighting tax evasion does not mean persecuting”

“The fight against evasion is not the will to persecute someone”. Thus the director of the Revenue Agency, Ernesto Maria Ruffini, speaking at the conference “Let’s make Italy simple”, after the outings of Matteo Salvini who asked for a “great and definitive fiscal peace”. “It is a fact of justice towards all those who, and they are the vast majority, pay taxes year after year”, says the number one of the tax authorities. “Ours is an essential job for the functioning of the whole public machine – Ruffini underlines – because if we want to guarantee the fundamental rights of the person indicated and protected in our Constitution, resources are needed”. An answer, therefore, to Deputy Prime Minister Salvini who launched the idea of ​​a “great and definitive fiscal peace” in favor of “millions of Italians”. For Salvini, the meaning of his proposal, on which Fdi also came to a sudden stop, is to point out that the Italians have been “hostages for too many years by the Revenue Agency”.
“The Agency is a State administration, not a belligerent entity” Ruffini underlined, explaining that the fight against tax evasion is “a matter of justice towards all those who, and they are the vast majority, pay taxes year after year they pay them and they have paid them, always down to the last penny, even at the cost of sacrifices and despite the undeniable high tax burden; of those who need the support of the State, provided through public services with the financial resources recovered”. “Ours – he said – is an essential job for the functioning of the whole public machine, because if we want to guarantee the fundamental rights of the person indicated and protected in our Constitution, such as the health of citizens, the education of our children, the security for all of us, resources are needed and we are called to collect them for everyone’s benefit. Even those who evade their payment. And we are all called to do it in the forms, ways and times that are always and only established by the legislator, not by the Revenue Agency”.
The role of the state
Ruffini’s words resonate, in fact, as the claim of his role as a servant of the State and of the Revenue Agency. «Every day we interpret our role at the service of the community with a profound sense of the State», he says and «we stand by the citizens who want to continue to have a correct relationship with the tax authorities and ensure full and loyal compliance by all tax”. And he points out how the work of Hades made it possible, in 2022, to «recover overall the record figure of over 20 billion in tax evasion. The most important result ever» explained Ruffini. Through the letters of compliance, he explained, “we have returned 3.2 billion euros to the state budget”, while through the anti-fraud activity “we have managed to intercept or block 9.5 billion euros”.