the Salvini-Ruffini clash point by point- Corriere.it

In Italy, Matteo Salvini’s sortie on fiscal peace – a tax amnesty that sounds like the gong of the electoral campaign for the 2024 European elections – received the response of the Director of the Revenue Agency, Ernesto Maria Ruffini, not very happy to be portrayed as the one who holds millions of Italians hostage. And he seems to be proposing a new fault line within the majority, which adds to the question of justice. The Northern League leader’s words have rekindled the issue of tax evasion: the reaction of the opposition is tough, but not only of the opposition. But what did Matteo Salvini say?

On Saturday, the Minister of Infrastructure relaunched the idea of ​​amnesty, the eternal return of Italian politics. He proposed, as Mario Sensini explained, the cancellation not only of interest and penalties, but also of a part of the actual tax debt. With these words: We need a great and definitive fiscal peace to free millions of Italians held hostage by the tax authorities and the Revenue Agency for too many years. I’m talking about Italians who filed their tax returns, but then failed to pay everything they owed.

The prison and the threshold

Salvini tried not to appear lax – Total tax evaders, completely unknown to the tax authorities, can go to jail by throwing away the key – but he indicated a new threshold in his opinion acceptable to the State: If someone has a problem, up to 30,000 euro that has been dragging on for years, let’s close it. We ask him for a part and we reset everything else.

Ruffini’s answer

Without ever mentioning Salvini, yesterday the director of the Revenue Agency – who has just been reconfirmed for another three years by the government – recalled the sense of taxes as the basis of civil coexistence and the fundamental role of the entity he manages: The contrast to escapism is not a willingness to persecute someone. a fact of justice towards all those who, and they are the vast majority, pay taxes year after year and have always paid them down to the last penny, even at the cost of sacrifices and despite the undeniable high tax burden. As for the Agency, a State administration is not a belligerent entity, our work is essential 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, resources are needed. Simple truth, yet still contested, comments Massimo Franco.

Salvini’s rejoinder

His idea of ​​fiscal peace, said the minister, aimed at those who made declarations but failed to pay them all, and would ensure an advantage for the State, which collects a tidal wave of billions to be used for salaries and pensions and a release for 15 million people. The sense, in his opinion, that people who have had problems with the taxman, who have not been able to pay everything they owed, should be helped, not condemned.

The reaction of the oppositions

Francesco Boccia (Pd): Unconscious ministers, they do damage to democracy and humiliate the Italians who pay taxes. Giuseppe Conte (5 Stars): a toxic subculture of unacceptable government, very serious incitement to tax evasion, thus social peace is broken. Carlo Calenda (Action): Salvini’s words are unworthy of a minister. Angelo Bonelli (Alleanza-Verdi Sinistra): We are facing the subversive government of tax evaders.

reactions in the majority

At the s of Forza Italia to Salvini’s proposal, An amnesty? Yes, it depends on the contents: the amnesty must mean an assessment of who is able to pay, says the Minister of the Environment Gilberto Pichetto Fratin — counterbalances the position taken by Maurizio Leo. Leo is important for 4 reasons: the deputy minister of the economy, the main exponent of the Brothers of Italy in this matter, has the dossier of the tax delegation in hand (therefore the tax reform) and worked in the past at the legislative office of the Revenue agency. He therefore explains: it is important to establish the principle that all taxes must be paid. The aspect on which we are working concerns the sanctions: the current scrapping serves to move us towards a reform that brings the sanctions on late payments and missed payments in line with the European averages, of around 60% of the tax due. And again: It has been said that the Revenue Agency, in some cases, has been aggressive. In reality, he did nothing but apply complex, difficult, often incomprehensible rules of law. We have to fight tax evasion and we will do it in the most effective way possible, but with new tools, with the technology we have at our disposal.

Salvini tells the truth

Is what Salvini says true? And what is it that fiscal peace, and in general the practice of amnesties, bring advantages to the State? Let’s see what our experts have to say. Federico Fubini: On the merits, the annoyance for Salvini’s proposal can be explained by the choice of timing of the leader of the League. The deadlines for joining the fourth folder scrapping expired on 30 June, the related payments in installments should start in the autumn and any different signal in this phase it risks pushing taxpayers not to pay, in the hope of more generous amnesties in the future. And the government badly needs the quater scrapping to generate revenue, in order to manage cash balances. Luigi Ferrarella: In the 2019 Budget Law, Minister Matteo Salvini wanted at all costs a “settlement and excerpt” allegedly “for the poor”, i.e. the possibility of extinguishing the 2000-2017 tax bills in charge of the Revenue Agency by paying only from 16 to 35% of the amount due, provided that Isee income is less than 20,000 euros a year: Salvini expects a revenue of 30 billion, Lega technicians predicted 4 billion, until 900 million entered the state coffers. After all, already the “scrapping” and the “balance and excerpt” launched between 2016 and 2018 registered requests for 53.8 billion of expected revenue, of which 33.6 billion were never paid. Luigi recalls the thought of the Court of Auditors: The more taxpayers are aware of a substantial impunity, the more the audience of tax evaders widens.

The previous scraps

Mario Sensini: In the previous scrappings, the first in 2016, the “bis” in 2017, the “ter” in 2018, many citizens started the procedure, defined the amounts to be paid with the tax authorities, relieved of penalties, interest and premium, but then they didn’t pay, or they stopped after the first installments. Thus, if in 2016 17.7 billion were to enter, 8.2 billion were collected, in 2017 less than 3 billion instead of 8.4, in 2018 just 8.6 billion compared to the 26.3 of the estimated collection. Fiscal peace invoked yesterday by Salvini is more similar to the balance and removal of the bills, with the total or partial cancellation of the debt, which so far has concerned bills of smaller amounts, from one thousand to five thousand euros, and only for the taxpayers with the lowest incomes, up to 30 thousand euros of Isee. Mario again: It doesn’t make much sense to talk about small debtors who are harassed, about “avoiding needs”. Salvini thinks of the citizens who declare taxes and who in the end don’t pay, or stop, because they don’t have the money. But 80% of the evasion, as Ruffini points out, concerns citizens who have not presented their declaration at all, or that they even falsified it. Many of whom, at least 7 million, are also inveterate recidivists, and receive at least one folder every year. In short, the problem does not appear to be that of small taxpayers.

The numbers show that 70% of the evasion, 800 billion, concerns the 1.3% of the richest taxpayers, those who have tax debts of over half a million euros. Then there are the small debtors, who are an enormous mass: the Agency’s databases count 11 million with a debt of up to a thousand euros, and another 7 have outstanding debts of up to 10 thousand euros, even if they owe a total of 40 billion, the 3.3% of the total. But then Salvini… So does Salvini want to buy the votes of tax evaders with the money of loyal tax payers? it is clear that his opponents, including the majority of competitors, think or suspect it.

The theory of vote-grabbing slogans

Paradoxically, a less severe version was provided by Luigi Marattin of Italia viva, who underlined that in the tax delegation there are two (sacrosanct) concepts that hurt tax evaders a lot: overcoming the role and folder, to significantly speed up the collection and direct withdrawal from tax evaders’ current accounts. So for Marattin Salvini is desperately trying to distract attention, with “vote-grabbing” slogans which in this case are the exact opposite of what he does in government. As if to say: the right things are done and the wrong things are said in order not to pay (electoral) duty. And now Meloni is waiting. In the coming weeks/months, every word of the Prime Minister on the taxman will be carefully examined. The latest, pronounced in Sicily on the state lace, have aroused much controversy. It will be necessary to understand if the line of the Brothers of Italy will be that of Leo or if the competition with the League will not cause other changes. Taking into account that the League is also zigzagging, given that Salvini’s moves do not excite Economy Minister Giorgetti. And in the meantime the tax reform will have to proceed. Which promises to be the hot topic of the next electoral appointment.

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