“Only three certainties: IMU, assets and VAT increase”, PDL secretary Angelino Alfano thundered via Twitter (increasingly protagonist of Italian political events), commenting on the Monti agenda. The secretary of the Democratic Party Pierluigi Bersani, on the other hand, was certainly more cautious: “I haven't seen anything surprising in the prime minister's agenda. There are some things that can be shared, others a little less”.
The political game, as often happens, it is played out once again on the tax front, certainly one of the topics dearest to Italians. But beyond the game of roles, and the blows that come from the sides, what are the positions of the main parties and what are the real chances that the government that will come out of the elections will impose a new property tax?
The position of the Pdl in this sense is, at least in words, very clear: Berlusconi has promised in all the locations of his televised world tour that he will abolish the Imu. The last recipe, to be able to do without the tax, is that of "slightly increase alcohol, tobacco, bets and games".
In Monti program, speaking of taxes, we read: "A legislative commitment is needed, as soon as the general conditions allow it to reduce the overall tax burden, giving priority to the reduction of the burden weighing on work and business, also by transferring it to large estates and consumption".
A brand new patrimonial would not be on the horizon, but only a redistribution of the IMU, without touching the total revenue. Monti's idea is to lighten the taxation on lower incomes, and on properties granted on loan for use by parents to their children, considered by the tax authorities as 'second homes'. On the other side of the balance, it would intervene to compensate for these reductions the increase of the IMU on real estate assets of greater scopeand, which would be combined with a complete revision of the cadastre, which would provide rents closer to the real market values.
An increase for large estates therefore appears highly probable. But what will be strengthened above all will be consumption taxation, already destined to rise from 21% to 22% as regards the ordinary rate, and the fight against VAT evasion, estimated at around 40 billion euros a year.
A question of fairness, we often read in the Monti Agenda. Equity issue that also seems to be espoused by Bersani, whose fiscal policy, in this sense, shouldn't differ much from that of the premier. Already in the past, in fact, the secretary of the Democratic Party had announced a very similar recipe, stating that he wanted to "lighten the Imu on first homes, combining it with a personal tax on large real estate assets", probably starting from "one million euros". .
