With the final approval of green homes directivewe start talking about what can be done to cover the costs associated with the works provided for by the provision and of how to modulate tax breaks on the subject of energy efficiency. The Minister of the Environment and Energy Security offered the very first indications, Gilberto Pichetto Fratinthen it was the turn of the director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Economy, Giovanni Spalletta. The latter, in particular, launched some hypotheses aimed at redesigning incentives and avoid all the problems generated by the superbonus.
According to what Spalletta explained during the hearings in the Senate Finance Committee on the bill to convert the new superbonus decree, the new building bonuses could be characterized by rates not too generousfrom stringent spending limits and from prior authorization.
Indications for the new building bonuses
In detail, the director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Economy explained that “the automatic relief measures, without prior authorization, are no longer compatible with the new public finance framework and the new European governance rules”. And he underlined: “From now on, the energy efficiency objectives, as well as the improvement of seismic risk, must take into account the objectives of financial sustainability in the medium-long term and the reduction of public debt both in economic phases and from a structural”.
Spalletta then specified: “From a structural point of view, we believe that an overall rationalization of the rules regarding building subsidies and a redefinition of the subsidies cannot ignore two lessons resulting from recent experience. First and foremost, tax incentives must be designed by avoiding excessively generous rates and providing for more stringent limitations on spending ceilings, to reduce opportunistic behavior and disruptive effects. Secondly, the transformation of tax credits into direct spending contributions subject to preventive authorization procedures to access the benefits is now recommended to achieve the dual objective of monitoring spending and promptly acquiring data on the progress of the measures. And, therefore, of the impact on public finances”.
They therefore emerge from these words very precise indications for the new building bonuses:
- avoid excessively generous rates;
- strictly limit spending ceilings;
- activate preventive authorization procedures for the transformation of tax credits into direct spending contributions.
The role of credit assignment and invoice discount
Speaking about what happened with the superbonus, the director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Economy highlighted the fact that “the discount on the invoice and the transfer of credit made the benefit particularly advantageous, taking into account that the beneficiaries were allowed not to anticipate the liquidity necessary to support the renovation works. Almost all of the beneficiaries used the aforementioned methods of use and therefore preferred not to advance the expenses and not deduct them from the Irpef starting from the following year”.
Reciting the numbers of the invoice discount and the transfer of credit available to the Department of Finance, Spalletta announced that “the IRPEF deductions for the superbonus were equal to approximately 4% of the total annual cost in the 2022 tax year of the measure, while 96% of the benefit is attributable to the discount on the invoice and the transfer of credit”. And it is precisely the “indiscriminate use of invoice discounts and credit assignment” that has generated the “critical issues linked to the fraudulent use of deductions and financial sustainability, which have made it necessary to adopt restrictive measures”.
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