Tough times for the bank secrecy in Austria but good news for the employees. The Austrian government coalition, made up of popular and social democrats, found an agreement after close negotiations for the 2016 Finance Law, which provides for 5 billion euro relief for employees to boost consumption, however introducing measures to recover taxable income from other sectors.
As? To recover taxable income hidden from the "hounds" of the tax authorities, the abolition of banking secrecy for businesses and the introduction of the cash register for all merchants were approved. Banking secrecy in Austria, in reality, no longer existed in the event of investigations carried out by the judiciary, but now the simple initiative of the tax office will suffice to sift through suspicious current accounts or accounts in the guise of evasion. In short, hard times for the evaders who took refuge behind the curtain of the former impenetrable Austrian banking secrecy.
Gone are the days of Bank secret inaccessible and impregnable even in Austria, an Alpine country that is increasingly struggling to keep up with global competitiveness. Not only. Vienna has decided to roll out cash registers to try to eliminate the pockets of tax evasion that still exist among merchants. Exactly the opposite of what Italy is about to decide, which instead would like to put the cash registers in the attic and bet everything on electronic invoicing and cross-checks.
The Austrian government made up of Spoe (social democrats) and Oevp (people's people) decided in a very dense Council of Ministers to introduce greater fiscal progressivity: essentially the most important measure after the reduction of banking secrecy for businesses is the cut 36,5% to 25% of the tax rate on taxable income for the first bracket, between 10 and 25 euros.
Austrian taxpayers, remembering that under 10 euros are tax exempt, an average of an extra thousand euros will remain in their pockets a year, a sort of photocopy provision of our 80 euros per month decided by the Renzi government with the hope of relaunching consumption and the 'economy. Will Vienna succeed in this difficult game of relaunching consumption without depressing the economy? A bet that many analysts judge by very uncertain outcomes.
