Superbonus without invoice discount: that’s why it will benefit the rich

If the discount on the invoice disappears, as the government has decreed, the nature of the Superbonus changes radically. It becomes a measure truly for the few, intended for only 4% of Italians. In the future it will only be used by the rich in practice, by those who pay so many taxes that they can afford to deduct at least 100,000 euros of work over 4 years. Explains on la voce.info the economist Leonzio Rizzo, full professor of finance science in Ferrara: «By eliminating the possibility of the discount on the invoice and the transfer of credit, the possibility of benefiting from the measure is limited only to the so-called capacious taxpayers. In fact, the decree law provides that only the deduction (currently 90% of the expenses for the Superbonus) spread over four years can be used. All those who have low incomes and pay few taxes would not be able to discount their expenses and therefore to benefit from the relief”.

In this way, the expert points out, “the amount of resources necessary to finance the Superbonus is certainly limited, but to the detriment of low-income taxpayers, helping to decrease the level of progressivity of the tax system”. So Rizzo gives some examples: with an expense of 50,000 euros, to be sufficient for the entire deduction due to be divided over four years, in the case of an employee, it is necessary to have an income of at least 43,000 euros. Therefore only 9% of employees would be able to fully benefit from the deduction. The remaining 91% would lose some of it.

In the case of works equal to 100,000 euros, the income necessary to benefit from the full deduction, again for an employee, rises to at least 69,000 euros. In the latter case, only 4% could benefit from the full deduction, while the remaining 96% would lose part of it. And in many cases, therefore, there would be great difficulty in tackling work of this importance, if not the owners could even be induced to give up given that according to Enea the average expense recorded for bringing single-family houses up to standard is equal to 113 thousand euros.

Parliament is already discussing how to help non-profit organizations and the Iacp, which in turn have very limited fiscal space. And the underdogs? “We are listening to everyone and we are ready to implement the indications about possible changes, then we will draw the sums” explains the rapporteur to the decree Andrea De Bertoldi (Fdi). “We expect the Government to move from words to deeds in the next few hours, presenting another decree or amendment, otherwise we will be the usual propaganda, good for those who want to believe it” declares the national secretary Fillea CGIL Alessandro Genovesi who together with Feneal and Filca calls for both low incomes (Isee up to 30,000 euros) as well as popular condominiums and incompetents (about 7.8 million Italians) to be exempted from the ban on the assignment of credits. All subjects who otherwise would have obvious difficulties in anticipating 100% of the sums or, if insufficient, in enjoying even the deductions. We are talking about pensioners, precarious workers, the unemployed, workers and large families, all people who live in houses and condominiums most in need of redevelopment interventions ».

According to a survey produced by Nomisma at the end of 2022, if the provision were confirmed also for the current year, 10.3 million families would still be interested in an intervention aimed at improving the energy efficiency of a property. Of these, 4.6 million households declared that they had already decided or intended to take advantage of the Superbonus. As regards the previous one, 25% of those who have already benefited from this measure have a higher than average family income (over 3,000 euros per month) and in 23% of cases they own a second home. On the other hand, however, 1.7 million Italians with medium-low income have benefited from the measure since it was launched “confirming the fact – explains Nomisma – that the measure has made it possible to access the deep redevelopment of their units housing to a less well-off portion of the population who, otherwise, would not have used them”.