Tax, the Court of Auditors has no doubts: the financial adjustment maneuvers, but also the high tax evasion, lead to a weight of more than 45% of the GDP. Work and businesses, which bear a tax burden 50 billion euro higher than the European average, were penalised, as were loyal taxpayers. This is the panorama outlined by the president of the Court of Auditors, Luigi Giampaolino, heard by the budget commission of the chamber on the growth prospects for 2012.
“The repeated financial adjustment maneuvers conducted in 2011 operated above all on the side of the tax burden, rather than, as would have been desirable, on the side of spending reduction. The result is that we are moving towards a pressure exceeding 45% of GDP, a level that has few comparisons in the world, Giampaolino points out. Which does not fail to underline how "unlike what is recorded in the rest of Europe, the distribution of the tax burden penalizes work and businesses, which bear a tax burden 50 billion euro higher than the European average'".
EVASION – And certainly the phenomenon of tax evasion does not help to lighten this burden. Because if on the one hand in the last five years the results from the fight against tax evasion amounted to 73 billion euros with an incidence of 35,5% on the total higher overall net revenues, on the other hand however "the size of the of the phenomenon and the seriousness of the distortions induced by tax evasion make it necessary to seek further interventions necessary for an effective and lasting improvement of tax compliance". Not only that: if you add that the most accredited estimates assume a level of tax evasion of the order of 10-12% of the product, it follows - points out Giampaolino - that our system is designed in such a way as to impose a tax burden on loyal taxpayers that is certainly excessive“. Furthermore, the redistribution of the tax burden "is linked not only to the second phase of the already envisaged maneuver on VAT rates, but above all to the reduction of expenditure, both disbursement and tax". For the president of the Court of Auditors, they therefore surrender necessary interventions aimed at the emergence of the tax bases, ”such as the telematic control of the fees”, in addition to ”the expansion of the burden of the traced payment as a requirement of the tax eligibility of the expenditure” in addition, ”to the evolution of the financial administration's commitment - today essentially focused on the subsequent repressive control towards fulfillment – towards a persuasive and proactive role as early as the declaration stage”.
GROWTH - What to do? According to the President of the Court of Auditors "once the emergency conditions have subsided, in order to be able to open the space for a reduction in the tax burden that helps to relaunch the economy but does not jeopardize budget rebalancing, it is necessary to work with tenacity and determination to reduce spending. Safeguarding, as far as possible, that part of it that has beneficial effects on the propensity for growth of our system". In the first place, explains the president, this calls into question investment expenditure which, "contrary to what would have been necessary, has proved to be the most sacrificed part of expenditure in recent years". “The 1 point increase in GDP growth estimated by the Bank of Italy with the drop in the spread to 200 points – recalls Giampaolino – alone would be sufficient to determine additional tax revenues of an amount equal to those expected from the expected increase of two points of the ordinary VAT rate; resources equivalent to those needed to increase government fixed investment expenditure by about a quarter". And for the Court of Auditors "The relaunch of public investment is strategic", despite the manoeuvres, "the interventions carried out are still limited". Another particularly important component, for the purpose of promoting economic growth, is that destined for the "formation of human capital".
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS – According to the accounting judiciary it can be calculated that "with an average real growth rate of our economy of 1% per year, nand the next 20 years, a balanced budget would in itself imply compliance with that constraint and would lead to a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 65% at the end of that period“. But "even in conditions of balanced budget and as much as the consolidation causes the spread to decrease for a long time to come, we will still have to deal with high debt interest charges", notes Giampaolino, signaling the need "to do not give up reducing the stock through the sale of those parts of the heritage that are not functional to the performance of essential tasks and are not subject to artistic or similar protections''. As for the previous debt of the public administration, "the widespread estimates tend to provide a dilated, and in any case imprecise, dimension of the commercial credits of companies", underlines the president of the Court of Auditors. "It is necessary to subject the balance sheet and equity data of public administrations to careful checks". And focusing on the reconstruction of the previous debts of the State as a whole, he estimated them at a figure not exceeding 17 billion.
