After a long wait, the Government has finally launched the new Isee. This was announced by the Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, at the end of the Council of Ministers which took place this morning at Palazzo Chigi. The new instrument "tackles the scandal of the fake poor and raises the issue of a direct relationship between the real situation and access to welfare and rights", underlined the Premier.
The ISEE (Indicator of the equivalent economic situation) measures the degree of well-being of citizens and is essential for establishing the amount due for social services of various kinds and university fees. The calculation takes into account incomes, savings and assets, putting everything in relation to the size of the family nucleus. The goal is to flush out those who enjoy concessions even if they are not entitled to them.
With the new Isee, only part of the data will be self-certified, while the most important tax data such as total income and those relating to services received from INPS will be compiled directly by the public administration.
"With the reform - said the Minister of Labour, Enrico Giovannini - we intend to have a more correct tool for assessing the relative conditions between families with different economic possibilities, but also to restrict the spaces for evasion, remembering that any alleged mischief takes away a opportunity to those who are entitled to it”. Isee will take into account "all forms of income, even those tax exempt", and will give "more appropriate weight to the asset component".
The new version of the indicator widens the spectrum of social benefits: now there are also discounts on telephone and electricity bills, the free or semi-free supply of school books, basic income and home and semi-residential social and health care services. As for carers, they can be discharged from income up to 19.500 euros.
On the other hand, the audience of beneficiaries is narrowing: the Isee aims to exclude those who, despite having low personal income tax incomes, own assets such as luxury cars or boats. The calculation will include deposits and bank accounts, bots, bonds, shares and assets under management. Even the real estate assets will help to raise the income, while the allowance to the spouse can be deducted.
The general effectiveness of the system is entrusted to a series of cross-checks with data from the tax authorities and INPS. One of the fundamental innovations is to grant greater autonomy to governors and mayors in deciding the Isee limits under which one is entitled to the benefit.
Several past flaws have been corrected. For example, the question of nursery schools: the case of school requires that parents are not married and have two different residences. The father earns, the mother doesn't, and since the child is dependent on the woman, the child enters the nursery by bypassing the children of the truly poor. This is why the father's income will also be taken into account with the new Isee.
However, some problems remain. Above all the old trick of removing all the money from the current account, signing the ISEE declaring that you have no savings, and then paying all the money back into the same account.
