“Take off the VAT on cosmetic surgery”, it’s a clash. The left: “Help the rich” – Corriere.it

« The government intervenes with a law to remove VAT from cosmetic surgery operations. And at the same time it guarantees regulatory certainty for operators in a sector, doctors and patients, who have been dealing with the Revenue Agency for some time ». This is what the center-right is asking for in a motion presented to the Chamber, signed by all the center-right parties. “Medicine and cosmetic surgery services – explains Forza Italia deputy Annarita Patriarca, first signatory – must fall within the category of health services not subject to VAT treatment. The concept of “health” includes any “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being” which does not consist merely in the absence of disease or infirmity». And then: “Applying the tax today – continues Patriarca – even requiring payment for the past, represents a critical issue for sector operators and for the patients themselves, as well as contradictory conduct on the part of the tax authorities”.

The motion was signed, among others, also by the Northern League Simona Loizzo and by the deputy of the Brothers of Italy, Luciano Ciocchetti. The theme has been at the center of a complex legal dispute for years: in 2005 a circular from the Revenue Agency it certified the services of medicine and cosmetic surgery as “exempt” from VAT, because they were “connected to psychophysical well-being”. Even for the WHO, the motion recalls, the concept of health includes “every state of well-being, not just an absence of disease”. However, some local offices of the Revenue Agency contested the lack of VAT payment in the light of a ruling by the EU Court of Justice according to which aesthetic operations are included in medical treatments, exempt from VAT, only if they have to do with traumas, handicaps and illnesses. However, the motion complains that these are non-unique VAT disputes in Italy, which are causing serious damage to doctors.

Finally, the Cassation also intervened which, endorsing the European sentence, established that it is up to the taxpayer-doctor to demonstrate that the conditions exist which legitimize the request for exemption. In short, the motion asks the government to put an end to these disputes and sanctions, for the past but also for the future. And above all exempt all aesthetic interventions from VAT. Against this request, Nicola Fratoianni: «While they are preparing to remove the super stamp for those who own a Ferrari worth 300 thousand euros – complains the leader of the Italian Left – the right is asking the government to remove the VAT on cosmetic surgery. I would expect greater attention to those who can no longer afford dental care, or those who can no longer afford to pay for medicines or who wait months if not years to be able to be examined”.

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