The government that could be born in the next few days will have as its first objectives to relaunch the economy the reforms in the employment, public administration and tax sectors, according to what has already been indicated by the prime minister in charge, Matteo Renzi.
For work, the starting point will certainly be the Jobs Act, presented a few weeks ago by Renzi himself to the Democratic Party. For the reform of the public administration, the new government will be able to draw inspiration from the work being carried out by the bicameral parliamentary commission for simplification, chaired by Bruno Tabacci.
As regards interventions in the fiscal sector, the new Government will find the enabling law practically ready "for a more equitable, transparent and growth-oriented system" - as the title states - prepared by the Chambers in this start of the legislature and based on the principles of the bill presented in the previous one by the Monti Government. Which, however, does not contain the principles of a tax reform, but a series of corrective and supplementary interventions of various aspects of the current tax system and its administrative application. Would the interventions of this delegation law be sufficient to stimulate economic recovery?
The first consideration, in this regard, is that the most important fiscal intervention to restart consumption and production must be the reduction of the overall levy, ie the easing of the tax burden. In this sense, the enabling law is useless, since all the very numerous directive principles of intervention are "zero balance", i.e. they cannot lead to a reduction in tax revenues. Therefore, financial resources are needed to be put on the table to compensate for lower tax revenues, if the fiscal spark is to effectively fuel the restart of the economy. Resources that can come from the recovery of evasion, but above all that must arise from the cost reductions of the "spending review" package.
Fundamental, therefore, is the decision to channel significant cost savings as well as all that is recovered from the fight against tax evasion to allow for the reduction of overall tax revenues. This is a strong political choice, which the new Government should solemnly adopt, perhaps also identifying mechanisms, provided they are effective and not just a facade, capable of automatically ensuring a flow of resources towards the reduction of tax levies.
The second consideration, regarding the effectiveness of the forthcoming fiscal enabling law for economic recovery, is that even assuming that the measures envisaged therein are strong enough, there is an unacceptable time lag between the urgency of the interventions and the implementation times of legislative powers. Although the provision in Parliament provides for a short time (one year) for the issue of the many implementing legislative decrees, they are too long in the face of the country's need to hook up to the current timid signs of recovery in progress.
Third consideration: almost fifty years after the Cosciani reform, our tax system is still based on those fundamental principles, which then appeared advanced and suitable for a country that was moving from the enrichment of the economic boom towards more economic and social systems of the West, but which today has to deal with completely changed economic, social, productive and technological conditions, and, therefore, deal with the tax systems of other countries that have followed its evolution.
Therefore, the corrections to the enabling law in progress are welcome, some of which are truly necessary and urgent (just think of the regulation of the abuse of rights), but do not lose sight of the most important objectives: immediately reduce the levy rates; start a reflection on the evolution and on a true re-foundation of the tax system, which places our country also at the helm of a European process of unification of tax systems on new bases, in step with today's realities of the international economy.
