Never the “tax big brother”. Never the “common people harassed” by the tax authorities. Just over 24 hours after the chaos that was unleashed on the new revenue meter, Giorgia Meloni, after a confrontation at Palazzo Chigi with her deputy minister Maurizio Leo, appears in a video on social media and announces that the ministerial decree will be “suspended”, pending “further details”. And in the meantime you reiterate that the government’s line is to track down “the great tax evaders”, those “have-nots who drive around in SUVs and go on holiday on yachts” and certainly not to stick their noses into the expenses of “honest citizens “. The prime minister had already rushed this morning, again via social media, to assure that she would deal with the matter and that she would ask for “changes if necessary” herself.
Video Meloni: ‘I saw Leo, let’s suspend the decree on the income meter’
Throughout the day in Parliament we didn’t talk about anything else, hypothesizing possible solutions to get out of a primarily “communicative” short circuit. Suspension, repeal or modifications: these are the three hypotheses bouncing around in the groups. Maurizio Leo quickly appears in Montecitorio, careful not to be intercepted. Then he goes to Palazzo Chigi, to confront the prime minister. Finally, the reversal which inevitably exposes him to attacks from the opposition”. A “disgust”, the economic manager Antonio Misiani immediately says for the Democratic Party, asking for the “resignation” not only of Leo but also of the minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, both “flatly denied” by the prime minister. The ones who loudly asked to stop the new rules on the income meter, despite the restrictions introduced “to guarantee” taxpayers as Fdi was repeating, are however the government’s allies. Antonio Tajani is aiming straight for the “abolition” of the decree of Leo, and he is the first, a few minutes after the announcement of the stop, to say he is satisfied because “Giorgia Meloni has accepted our proposal to block the income meter”.
Furthermore, the League asks for an explicit commitment from the government to “clarify the scope of the ministerial decree, confirming the overcoming of the income meter institute”, with an agenda for the Superbonus decree which is then signed by all the deputies of Italia viva. And it is not satisfied with mere suspension: “It’s not enough, it needs to be overcome” reiterate the Northern League members of the Finance Commission, who then obtain a favorable opinion on their agenda, finally also signed by Fdi.
While Matteo Salvini nevertheless applauds the government’s choice to “stop the big fiscal brother”. In the Transatlantic of Montecitorio, crowded for the vote of confidence, there is a continuous exchange between the parliamentarians, between jokes about the affair, doubts about how to get out of it, and concerns about the impact on the electoral campaign. Now a new ministerial decree will be needed, which Leo will always have to sign, to suspend the application of the new version of an instrument that has “always been residual”, specifies in the meantime the director of the Revenue Agency Ernesto Maria Ruffini, explaining that it is ” used by the financial administration when it has no element to reconstruct the income of a taxpayer, as in the case of total tax evaders who have not submitted the return, have no income, but demonstrate significant spending capacity”. Precisely the identikit of those fake penniless people indicated by the prime minister as an “unacceptable phenomenon”, in short.
But the decree, Meloni admits in the social video, “has created controversy”, even if it was a necessary act to put “a limit on the discretion of the financial administration to contest inconsistencies between the standard of living and the declared income”. So for now everything stops. “Pending”, the government says, a “review of the institute”. Which will most likely be talked about after the European elections.
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