Superbonus, decree approved with a stop to the relief: 160 billion spent, but the real controls start now

The Chamber, with the vote of confidence, definitively approved the Giorgetti decree which blocks the 110% and introduces preventive controls on spending. The “case” of the Sismabonus: no one knows where forty billion went

Despite the hole in the public accounts, the controversies over responsibilities, the lack of controls, the repeated government tightening, spending on building renovations subsidized at 110% (and now 70%) until 2023 continues to travel without controls. The effective and preventive monitoring of deductions, provided for by decree 39 definitively approved today by the Chamber with a vote of confidence (178 yes votes, 102 no votes, 4 abstentions) will only take place in a few weeks. When the race for the Superbonus, precisely with this latest executive decree, which eliminated the invoice discount and the transfer of credit, cut out the works not yet started and spread the new deductions over ten years, seems to have completely stopped.

Mandatory communications

The designers, even before starting the works and at every stage of their progress, will have to declare the amount of the interventions carried out in 2024 until the entry into force of the legislative decree, and the expenditure they expect to make in the rest of this year. year and the next, with the percentage of applicable tax deductions. The fine for those who do not comply is very heavy, 10 thousand euros, and if the failure to communicate concerns the new works, the benefits will be forfeited.
The notification must be sent to Enea for Ecobonus interventions, and will be integrative of the information that is already communicated, and to the Italy Home Department for the Sismabonus, the subsidy for static consolidation works absorbed by the Superbonus, which however was never monitored. Even though from 2020 to today, around forty billion euros have been spent, money about which practically nothing is known.

Sismabonus never monitored

Unlike the subsidized interventions for energy efficiency, driving and driven, which have always been reported in detail to Enea (also because each of them has a ceiling), those for the seismic safety of buildings, with a spending ceiling of 96 thousand euros per real estate unit, cumulative with that for heat pumps, panels and double glazing, were never communicated to the State, except at the time of collecting the deduction. The other big difference is that to obtain the 110% deduction on Eco interventions, the building had to be improved by two energy classeswhile to get 110% for structural works no seismic improvement is required (unlike the ordinary Sismabonus).

A portal that has been awaited for two years

The May 2022 decree law of the Draghi government had imposed reporting at the end of the works, if only because part of the 110% Eco and Sismabonus interventions were financed by Pnrr funds, which needed to be monitored. However, after two years, Enea is still waiting from the Ministry of the Environment to know what data it should request. The Enea portal does not exist (and will probably never be created again), and therefore there is not even a reporting obligation. In the meantime, Super Sismabonus deductions have soared, dragged by those for energy efficiency.

Unknown expense

An official figure of how much the interventions financed by the State to strengthen homes and better deal with earthquakes and instability have cost, in a country exposed to these two risks like few others, does not exist. It can only be calculated by approximation, and by difference. As of April 4th, when communications on the 2023 jobs closed, according to the data released by the Government, the Revenue Agency counted 160 billion in deductions for the 110% works. If the Eco ones recorded by Enea were equal to 122 billion, the subsidized ones of the Super Sismabonus would therefore amount to around 40 billion euros (a part of these, however, financed the elevators foreseen by the Barrier Bonus, which was drawn from the same ceiling of the Sismabonus).

Everything is known about spending on energy efficiency: 122 billion for 495 thousand interventions (133 thousand condominiums, 244 thousand single-family buildings, 117 thousand independent units and 8 castles), where and how they were built, how many square kilometers of solar panels, thermal insulation and double glazing, how many charging stations, heat pumps and boilers are there installed, but also how much energy consumption has been saved (almost 10 billion euros so far). On earthquake interventions, however, the only counter was the stamp of the Revenue Agency upon registration of the credit.

The new Casa Italia portal

The obligation to communicate subsidized interventions for seismic safety, foreseen by the decree approved today, will only come into force in a few weeks, when the new National Portal of seismic classifications of the Italian Home Department will be fully operational. The Portal has been active since 2019 on an experimental basis, and to date contains 4,400 practices relating to anti-seismic interventions (the Ecobonus ones registered by Enea are one hundred times more). Also in this case, to activate the Portal, triggering the obligation to communicate, we are awaiting the operational instructions which will arrive with a Prime Ministerial Decree in preparation. Up to now the State has invested tens of billions, without knowing how. The certifications of interventions to reduce seismic risk on buildings have always been filed by technicians only with the technical offices of the Municipalities and the Civil Engineers, regional structures that do not speak to each other, and which authorize only the most important interventions.

A 40 billion mystery

The one imposed by Giorgetti will, however, a monitoring aimed exclusively at controlling public spending linked to bonuses. Which will be triggered, moreover, when the horse has already bolted. In April, the new interventions registered by Enea (always and only Eco) were just one thousand, and spending grew by “only” 400 million, after a boom of 45 billion in the previous six months. The Italian government, which in the last 50 years alone has spent almost 200 billion to repair earthquake damage, has created a specific ministry, entrusted to Nello Musumeci, to deal with emergencies and has been working for months on a single national code for all post-construction reconstructions. magnet. It has strengthened a structure, Casa Italia, which for the first time is actively dealing with the coordination of all activities, from prevention to reconstruction. But there will never be a national database of works done for seismic safety, not even those fully financed by the state. And the mystery will remain about the 40 billion spent on the Sismabonus.

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