Possible increase to come for estate taxes. The Renzi government is reportedly working on a change in the rules on inheritance, a tax chapter on which much has been discussed in past years, without however ever reaching a reform.
According to legal sources cited by MF, the Executive is thinking of adjusting the rates upwards, especially for inherited assets that exceed 5 million euros, and at the same time lowering the deductibles from the current million to 300-400 thousand EUR. These changes could exclude succession in a direct line (for example father-son succession), government bonds and life insurance policies. But the conditional is a must: still nothing is really clear.
As far as we know, the government is preparing the new provision starting from a bill presented in January 2015 by a group of deputies of the Italian Left-Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà. The text envisages remodulating the rates and lowering the deductible to 500 euros for spouses and relatives in a direct line, for whom the tax burden would rise from 4 to 7%. Instead, it would go from 6 to 8% for brothers and sisters (with a stable deductible of 100 thousand euros), from 6 to 10% on all inherited assets for relatives up to the fourth degree and similar in a straight line and from 8 15% on inheritances collected from other subjects.
Last year's proposal also contained similar changes to gift rates and expected to triple the ordinary tax burden on inheritances above €5 million. In these cases, the rate would rise to 21% for spouses and children, 24% for siblings, 30% for relatives up to the fourth degree and even 45% for all other heirs.
