While the Church is still fighting over the IMU, they are asking us from Europe to also collect the arrears of the old ICI. The The EU Commission has come to threaten a maxi-sanction against Italy if the government in Rome fails to recover around one billion euros. In the crosshairs of Brussels are the unpaid property taxes between 2006 and today by political parties, trade unions, Catholic and non-profit organizations. The MF-Milano Finanza newspaper writes it today.
The exemption granted in recent years is judged as illegal state aid. The real problem at this point is to accurately calculate the amount of the sum owed. So far the disagreement is total: according to the Treasury it would be just 100 million euros a year, while for the president of the Anci Graziano Delrio the arrears would double, 200 million a year.
Thus we would arrive at altitude 1,2 billion euros for the six years in question, that is, starting from when the law came into force, it also obliges non-profit organizations to pay the tax on spaces used for "merely commercial" purposes.
In short, even if in the end the Executive manages to make these subjects pay the IMU starting from next year (after the rejection of the implementing decree by the Council of State), the provision will not be sufficient to satisfy Brussels, which will evaluate it as a sort of disguised forgiveness on recent years of undue exemptions.
The government could though encounter difficulties in obtaining from the municipalities the lists of subjects to whom the arrears are to be paid. With the traditional prudence that reigns in relations between church and state, the government could choose to pay the European fine with the money of all Italian taxpayers.
