La flat tax that the government wants to introduce with the new Budget law “is likely to determine extremely harmful distorting effects, despite starting from the best intentions”. The alarm was raised by Massimo Miani, president of the National Council of Chartered Accountants.
The problem with the measure under study is that "individual VAT numbers would be excluded which, while remaining below the maximum turnover threshold - continues Miani - are also members of companies and professional associations and/or use capital goods for a value exceeding 20 thousand euros and/or incur expenses for employees and collaborators exceeding 5.000 euros per year".
According to the President of the Cndec, "the flat tax as a taxation model detached from the flat-rate regime would be fine and would be a real aid to VAT numbers, but a system that limits itself to expanding the turnover threshold of the minimum regime is instead highly distortive, because it creates the paradox of reward, even with the same turnover, the VAT numbers that do not aggregate, that do not invest and that do not hire, instead penalizing those who do even just one of these three very important things so that the activities grow and with them the economy”.
The accountants recall that the flat-rate regime with a flat tax of 15% was introduced by the Renzi government and was used by 728.357 VAT numbers in 2015 and by 935.406 in 2016 (data for 2017 are not yet available).
The Council further calculates that they are 593 thousand individual VAT numbers with turnover of up to 65 thousand euros which could be included in the expansion of the flat-rate regime with a flat tax of 15%. At the moment, the threshold is 30 euros for freelancers and 50 euros for those who carry out wholesale and retail trade and accommodation and catering activities.
