The Imu is back, but in disguise. This seems to be the road that the Government seems to have taken, desperately chasing three billion euros, more than the second installment of the property tax, to avert the increase in VAT to 22%. The municipal tax would be subjected to a maquillage operation and would return "disguised" as a service tax.
The entry into force of the tax on municipal services would thus be brought forward to 2013 (it was planned for 2014), bringing approximately 3 billion into the state coffers, 700 million more, broadly speaking, than the amount guaranteed by the second installment of the Imu, worth 2,3 billion euros. Both taxes, then, operate on the same taxable asset base, i.e. the cadastral income.
The warnings from Brussels and the Court of Auditors on the subject of deficits are having their due weight and the compensation plan which would guarantee the State sufficient coverage to avoid the VAT increase, and its consequences on consumption and inflation. Certainly, however, it will not solve the problem of the tax burden on the pockets of Italians who could see in this move a sort of hoax, the return from the window of an unpopular tax called by a different name.
The picture, then, is further complicated by two factors: the entry into force of the "patrimonial" part of the Tares and possible splits within the government majority, if one considers that the abolition of the Imu had been the great banner of the entire electoral campaign of the PDL and one of the cornerstones of Silvio Berlusconi's party proposal.
