Attempt number two. The Government is once again trying to lighten the IMU burden on Church buildings, overcoming the objections raised by the Council of State. The Executive is forced to accelerate the launch of the regulation which will also require non-profit organizations to pay the tax in 2013. And it does so with a new expedient.
The new text provides an ad hoc definition of what is not considered a commercial activity. Non-profit activities, including ecclesiastical ones, will be exempt from the Imu on the portions of "mixed" use properties from which they obtain profits (clinics, hotels, hostels, canteens, etc.). It will be sufficient to amend the statute of activities by December, including a ban on the distribution of profits or the obligation to invest them for social purposes. Or even if the obligation to devolve the assets, when the institution dissolves, to another non-profit organization with similar activity is inserted.
In particular, clinics and hospitals they will not have to pay anything if accredited or affiliated with public bodies and if their activities are carried out "in a complementary or supplementary manner with respect to the public service", free of charge or upon payment of fees "for a symbolic amount". How much? We don't know.
boarding schools and schoolsmoreover, they will be exempt if they carry out activities on an equal footing with state institutions, while they will not pay property tax structures with social accommodation. The concept of symbolic payment to dodge the tax also comes back for the cultural, recreational and sporting activities.
A first version of the regulation produced by the Ministry of the Economy (which however arrived with a delay of three months) had been rejected by the State Council last October 4, whose opinion is mandatory but not binding. At this point, the Government inserts the quibble with the new definition in the Local Authorities decree (designed for the costs of politics) and sends it back to the Council of State.
Meanwhile, Brussels has long since launched an investigation into the exemptions guaranteed to Vatican properties and could sanction Italy for illegal state aid. The EU aims to recover the sums not collected since 2006 (when the old ICI was still in force) and – according to what was reported today by the newspaper La Repubblica – the sum could touch 3 billion euros. Furthermore, the new discounts envisaged would cause economic damage to the country also in terms of lost revenue, given that the Government expected to collect from 300 to 500 million euros a year from the non-profit.
Maurizio Turco, a Radical deputy who in 2006 brought the ICI-Chiesa case to the EU Commission, affirms that the State coffers lack a sea of money: "At least 500 million a year". The director of the Cei Avvenire newspaper, Marco Tarquinio, instead reads the Government legislation as something that concerns all non-profit organizations and not just ecclesiastical ones. The latter, he says, "already pay taxes and we have also published the bulletins". He defines the figure of 500 million in missed payments reported by the Radicals as "a hoax". As for taxes, he underlines, "the Vatican is Rome's second and third taxpayer".
