The perimeter of the amnesty widens. According to what La Repubblica writes today, the Government is thinking of extending the borders initially imagined for the "fiscal peace". The goal is to increase the revenue from the measure, from which the Executive expects to obtain a large part of the resources to finance the very expensive flat tax.
And so, in its latest version, the burial amnesty should no longer include only the Equitalia tax bills up to 100 thousand euros (96% of the total), but also the tax disputes pending in the provincial (first instance) and regional tax commissions ( appeal). This would involve around 418 disputes, for a total value of 50,4 billion.
In total therefore, again according to the Roman daily, the Government would therefore be looking at at least 100 billion in total taxes not paid or contested before the judges by Italian taxpayers.
It is likely that the widening of the amnesty is necessary because the initial calculations on the potential revenue of the measure were wrong. According to the Lega program and the yellow-green government contract, the potentially collectible credits of the State with the amnesty on the folders would amount to 650 billion euros. According to Carlo Cottarelli's Observatory on Public Accounts, however, this figure is greatly overestimated: in reality, it would not go beyond 51 billion euros. Less than a tenth of what was assumed in the Lega document.
The study by the Observatory closes with a harsh criticism of "fiscal peace": the tax administration can offer discounts on taxes due when the taxpayer is unable to meet the debt, "but generalized measures - we read - end up rewarding even those who do not want to pay, creating an incentive to delay payments due also for the future. This incentive is greater the more generous is the discount offered to those who have not paid. And the discount offered in this case is certainly generous: according to the plans circulated, the taxpayer could pay up to only 6 per cent of the amount due and also the maximum percentage applicable (25 per cent) would be very modest, equal to that of one of the most generous amnesties applied in the past, the one introduced with the 2002 finance law. With such low percentages, in most cases, not only interest and penalties would be forgiven but also a good part of what was originally owed”.
