A complete metamorphosis. This is the idea that makes its way to resolve the most delicate and urgent issue that the Letta government has to face: the Imu. With the PDL threatening to bring down the Executive if its electoral promise to cancel the tax on first homes and return the one paid in 2012 (an operation that would cost eight billion immediately and another four a year from 2014 then), the suspension of the June down payment only serves to buy time.
The solution is still to be written and the fundamental problem does not change: financial coverage must be found with unchanged balances, because Brussels does not allow us to increase spending and widen the deficit. “We will use the room for maneuver that exists – Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni said yesterday in Parliament – and if they don't exist, we will decide where to find the necessary coverage”.
Apparently the Imu travels towards a total transformation, in form and in substance. Every aspect of the tax passed by the Monti government risks changing: the tax base, the rates, even the name. The hypothesis is also to modify its range of action: no longer a simple property tax, but a service levy from the Municipalities, which would also absorb other taxes.
First the Tares, i.e. the new tax on waste intended to replace Tarsu and Tia. It is worth one billion euros a year and the first burden on taxpayers' pockets has been postponed by the Professors to the end of 2013. Like the Imu starting this year, the Tares too would be collected entirely by the Municipalities, which would have the power to change the rates. The new fiscal creature in the making could also include a part of theregistration tax on the transfer of real estate, which should be eased.
To avoid a simple sum of different taxes, however, the very nature of the IMU will have to change. In addition to the revision of the tax base and rates, there could also be a increase in deductions for dependent children or a franchise that exempt those on low incomes from paying.
