According to the government Melons the discussed agreed biennial budget between the Revenue Agency and VAT numbers should allow revenue to be recovered from taxpayers with the most propensity to escape. The risk is that, on the contrary, it ends up legitimize it a part. While waiting for the actual application, which will come into force in a few weeks, the numbers published in recent days by the MEF Finance department give an updated idea of the starting conditions. The first evidence is that the flat tax introduced in 2019 by the yellow-greens and expanded by the current executive, it has already revolutionized the relationship between VAT numbers with the tax. The subsidized regime that allows you to pay only the 15% tax instead of the normal rates and surcharges it has drawn under its umbrella 1.8 million self-employed, individual businesses and professionals (+4.4% on the previous year), almost half of 3.8 million who filed their tax return in 2023. However, they continue to declare very little. And the data on the other category that will be able to join the agreement, i.e. the self-employed and companies subject to the agreements, are equally unreassuring Synthetic indices of fiscal reliability.
For those who have the average taxable flat tax of 16 thousand euros – Let’s start with the flat rates. L’average taxable amountwhich in their case is calculated by applying a profitability coefficient based on presumed expenses to the declared revenues, stops at 16,381 euros. A slight increase (in a year of strong GDP recovery) but well below the approximately 23 thousand euros of workers employees on which a large part of the Irpef falls. The average is also influenced upwards by the manufacturing sector buildings and from that of real estate activities: those who work in accommodation services And catering stands alone Average 11,300 euroswho is active in Wholesale and retail at 12,400 (see table). Values that make you think. It should be remembered that the latest reports on tax evasion prepared by the experts appointed by the MEF have highlighted how the flat tax leads to hide revenues to stay below the maximum threshold beyond which you stop enjoying it.
The cost to the state – On average, flat-raters paid €1,947 in tax for the entire year. The total revenue for the treasury was 3.2 billion. But the net effect on the public purse is considerable loss, given that applying Irpef to those incomes would yield much more. Exactly how much is very difficult to calculate, given that it is necessary to take into account the trend of the economy, the number of VAT numbers closed and opened in the meantime, the possible emergence of black money but also the opposite effect linked, as already seen, to the attempt to do not exceed the maximum revenue ceiling. The technical report of the Budget law for 2019, when the already existing flat-rate regime was extended by raising to 65 thousand euros the maximum level of compensation that allows you to benefit from it, had estimated lower income of 1.4 billion, which then rose to 1.7 billion with the raising to 85 thousand euros decided starting from 2023. Adding the effects of the original rule, which came into force in 2016 for a much smaller audience, the bill rises further. According to the last one annual report on tax expenditure – concessions and deductions – written by an ad hoc commission at the Mef, for this year we are talking about 3.1 billion of lost revenue.
Only 44% of self-employed people have sufficient “report cards”. – It doesn’t get any better if you look at the statements of the 2.73 million of self-employed individuals and companies subject to Synthetic indices of fiscal reliability, heirs of the sector studies, from which the flat rates are exempt. There was a lot of talk about ISAs when the government decided not to make access to them conditional agreed biennial budget to the possession of at least a sufficient “report card”. In fact, that restriction would certainly have – as complained by the majority in the Finance Committee – greatly restricted the audience to which the proposal will be made.agreement with the taxman on the taxes to be paid in the following two years in exchange for a lower probability of being assessed. As emerges from the latest analyzes of the Ministry of Economy relating to 2022 incomes, only 44.1% of the total taxpayers has a score of at least 8 (the minimum to obtain premium benefits) on a scale of 1 to 10. In 2021 it was 44.6%. In short: more than half are rightly considered probable tax evaders. Compared to flat rates, the average declared revenues are much higher, 46,920 EUR, with a peak of 74,490 euros for professionals. But the distance between those above 8 and those below it is abysmal, with the first a 78,142 euros and the seconds just above i 22 thousandThe 71% less. The gap is widening: the year before it was 68.5%.
The risks of the two-year agreement – The start of the operational phase of the agreement – the software for calculating the proposal will be available from June 15 – it will be the moment of truth. It is at that point that we will discover the strategy adopted by the Revenue to put into practice the instrument on which the deputy minister Maurizio Leo he staked everything, so much so that he went so far as to approve the new income meter (“stick” for those who did not join) without the knowledge of Palazzo Chigi with the consequences that have been seen. The tax administration must choose between two paths. If he aims high and proposes to the probable tax evaders with an insufficient Isa a presumed income of tens of thousands of euros higher compared to the last statement, the risk of flop of the measure is around the corner. If he, on the other hand, tries to gather as many members as possible by settling for limited increases, the revenue objectives imagined by Leo will vanish. Revenues will then inevitably decrease if the FdI representative accepts the ambitious request made by the representatives of traders and artisans who sit in the commission of experts responsible for periodically updating the Isa indicators: at the end of March they wrote to him to ask him to correct the decree on the composition by providing for virtuous taxpayers a flat tax to be applied to the differential between declared income and the figure proposed by the Revenue. I’m still waiting for a response.
As for the lump sums, for them the proposed agreement will concern only one year. Considering that it will be possible to join until mid-October, they will have all the information to evaluate whether it is convenient without running any risk. If anything, it will be the treasury that will lose out.
