Before abolished and then recovered by a decree signed by the deputy minister Maurizio LeoThe income meter in 2024 suffered a further stop by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. After a discussion with Leo, in fact, the head of government announced in a video on social media that the new decree ministerial will be “suspended” awaiting “further insights”.
New income meter 2024 already suspended
The new income meter announced by the deputy minister had in fact unleashed not only the anger of the opposition, but tensions within the majority itself. So much so that it was necessary for the Prime Minister herself to intervene and, at the end of a discussion, decided to suspend the decree. “No Tax Big Brother” will never be introduced by Fratelli d’Italia, said Giorgia Meloni. “Our goal – she explained – is to counteract the great tax evasion and the unacceptable phenomenon of those who pretend to have nothing, but travel around in an SUV or go on holiday with a yacht, but without this harassment of ordinary people with invasive rules”.
What is the income meter and how does it work?
Introduced in 2018, but in fact never really put into practice, the income meter returned to the fore with the ministerial decree of 7 May 2024, published in the Official Journal, signed by the deputy minister Maurizio Leo. This is a tool aimed at verifying the disparity between the income declared by the taxpayer and the expenses incurred with the aim of developing a presumed income and finding possible irregularities.
The new income meter would have been based on a methodology developed thanks to Istat and consumer associations. Among the new expense items used by the tax authorities to verify the presumed income were the expenses for:
- medicines and medical visits
- bills
- mortgages
- rents
- telephone
- plants and flowers
- to keep a horse
The analysis would have started from the 2018 income, taking into account the elements already present in the tax register.
When does the income meter check start?
The income meter check is triggered when the taxpayer’s expenses are excessive compared to the declared income. With the income meter, the calculation of the income corresponding to the expenditure incurred for certain goods and services is carried out with coefficients set by order of the director of the Revenue Agency.
What is synthetic assessment?
With the Ministerial Decree of 24 December 2012 (published in the Official Gazette no. 3 of 4 January 2013) the income meter regulation was implemented by identifying the elements indicative of contributory capacity on the basis of which the summary determination of income can be based.
The decree identifies in detail, in the two tables attached to the decree, the expenses to be compared with the income reported by the taxpayer to understand whether the taxpayer had a standard of living adequate to what was declared. In the case of expenditure exceeding the declared amount by at least one fifth, a summary determination of the income is permitted.
