Rai fee in chaos, from 2023 it can no longer be collected on the electricity bill but then how will it be done?

Once upon a time there was the story of the "most hated tax of Italians" paid with the old postal current account. Then came Prince Charming who imposed his own collection on the electricity bill and it seemed that the problem of the many tax evaders (about 25%) had been resolved. Now we have entered the heart of the forest of uncertainty and confusion from which it is difficult to imagine how to get out. Let's talk about Rai license fee which about 22 million Italians pay every year and which, starting from 2023, according to the provisions of Brussels, will have to be collected in a different way from the current one.

An "improper charge" within the bill

In May of last year, the news of a document from the European Commission leaked out where, with regard to the market measures affecting i electricity suppliers, we read that “Barriers by Market: “Burden (-sharing): Obligation to collect tariffs unrelated to Energy on behalf of others”. In a nutshell: electricity suppliers will no longer be able to collect the Rai license fee through the bill. To reinforce this address, last year, an amendment arrived to the Energy Decree, proposed by the Undersecretary for the ecological transition Laura Paxia, where it is proposed to adopt the Community directives without hesitation.

With the fall of the Draghi government, the Rai fee remains on standby

The problem, simply, is that we are just a few months away from when the new method of collecting the Rai license fee should be activated and no one is able to know how this can and must take place. The topic is politically very complex and delicate and precisely during the electoral campaign in view of 25 September, very few parties dare to touch it aware of its high "sensitivity" in public opinion.

At the moment, as far as we have been able to verify, there are no known shared hypotheses. The only possibility that seems to have been explored at Palazzo Chigi is that of a possible postponement to the following year precisely because an alternative method has not yet been adequately studied. The crisis of the Draghi government then slowed everything down.

Abolition of the Rai license fee: the (many) promises of the parties

These are the other possibilities on the table. The first, politically recurrent for several years and well distributed among different alignments, is that of its total abolition. The leader of the League Matteo Salvini he has made it his forte for some time: in 2014 he wrote “The Rai license fee to be paid with the electricity bill??? A theft, against which the Lega will fight by any means” and the current electoral program of the Lega envisages the “progressive reduction of the Rai license fee until its definitive abolition in the year 2030″.

On the opposite front, ideas don't seem very clear in the PD house: a question and answer made history in January 2018 between Matthew Orfini (then chairman of the party) e Carlo Calenda (then Minister of Economic Development of the Renzi Government), where the first argued that "the taxation of the Rai license fee is our historic proposal" and the second replied that "... if you want to address the question of the license fee, then think about Rai privatization otherwise it is mocked ".

To get to recent times, we can recall the exchange of jokes during a Rai Supervision Hearing between Senator PD Valeria Fedeli and Rai CEO Carlo Fuortes where the former asked the latter what his intentions were on the future of the Rai license fee and he responded by arguing that it is politics that must express what its intentions are. As far as the other parties are concerned, it is worth mentioning what was declared by Giorgia Meloni in October of last year: "... it is unacceptable, especially in this moment of economic crisis, to still put your hands in the pockets of Italians" when the hypothesis of making owners of devices other than traditional television pay a fee was mooted .

Who has to pay the TV license in Italy?

Here is one of the delicate aspects of the problem: who has to pay the fee? The law is clear: "Whoever owns one or more devices suitable or adaptable to receive radio auditions is obliged to pay the subscription fee" a principle reaffirmed by both the Constitutional Court and the Cassation. In 2016, the Legislative Office of the Mise announced a clarification on what is meant by "television set" and we read that this is such when "it is able to receive, decode or display the digital terrestrial or satellite signal ... via decoder or external tuner”. A menacing and thorny question weighs on Viale Mazzini's accounts: is anyone who sees Rai programs only through a tablet or Smart TV without a tuner required to pay the license fee?

Hypotheses for new payment methods: postal order or 730

Now there are very few ways forward to immediately address the issue of the forthcoming collection of the fee. The first hypothesis, however paradoxical it may appear, could consist in returning to the old method of "Postal” with the necessary adjustments and adjustments capable of dealing with a substantial evasion threat. The second hypothesis, the most radical, which some argue is feasible, is that of the inclusion of the Rai license fee in general taxation, ie fully charged to the State which would then have to provide for the maintenance of the public company with its own resources. It is a very complex politically and economically onerous road (an ad hoc payment in 730 has also been hypothesized) which could encounter many obstacles.

It's hard to imagine that we can talk about it in a short time. A similar road is being pursued France where Macron kept his promise of abolish the public television tax (an appeal is now pending and it is probable that the measure could be postponed). Same music in Spruce Brittany where, last January, Nadine Dorries, secretary of state for culture in Boris Johnson's government, argued that the license fee due to the BBC will first be frozen for the next two years and then be abolished completely in the next few years.

Alternatives to the collection of the Rai license fee in the bill 

Other viable ways are roughly that of its inclusion in a "joint taxation” like the one currently in force in Israel where you pay with car tax. Or through the collection of a housing tax, both rented and owned as is the case for example in Norway and Finland. A proposal then emerged from the deputy of Italia Viva Michele Anzaldi where it is expected “the payment of the fee takes place in ten monthly installments, expiring on the first day of each of the months from January to October. The overdue installments are debited bimonthly by the electricity company with collection notices issued in months distinct from those of issuing the invoices relating to the supply of electricity" and finally a proposal from Corecom Veneto and Emilia-Romagna to "regionalise" Rai and the related fee.

The other challenges of the public service

But the license fee is only part of the strategic challenges that the public service will have to face in the coming years, there are still issues of absolute importance at stake, all yet to be defined: first of all, the new Service Contract and its related Business Plan while we are in sight of the renewal of the government concession scheduled for 2027. In the meantime, however, December 31st is approaching and something about it will have to be written in the next Budget Law.