4% VAT for the catering sector it is destined to remain a mirage. In times of Covid, with Italy divided into three zones and four regions in lockdown, requests have been chasing each other for days to convince the government to sharply cut the tax for the restaurant sector, so as to support the companies most at risk. The problem is that a reduction like that it would cost too much. The Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, clarified it definitively in a live comparison on the website of the Corriere della Sera with chef Massimo Bottura, author of the letter-appeal "5 ideas to save Italian restaurants", which among other things contains the request to bring VAT to 4% for the catering sector.
"A sharp intervention on VAT, involving massive exposure in terms of billions, I see as complicated, and that's why we didn't put it on the plate right away - said the head of government - What I can say is that I see a more comprehensive remodeling of VAT as part of a tax reform”. But that is still to be written.
“Today, it costs billions to promise a 4% VAT and we don't have billions to put on the table – Conte said – I'll be very frank: already in the previous budget law, I myself had proposed a reformulation of VAT. Be careful, though: bring it to 4%, I'm honest, it costs several billion. I didn't even suspect she cost that much".
The Prime Minister then added that “today in the Council of Ministers a fund will be created in which to place additional resources to be used when there are variations between yellow, orange and red areas, to have immediate appropriations. We must create a state protection belt to grit our teeth in these weeks ”. And in the evening the new Refreshments Decree was voted with a dowry of 2 and a half billion in new aid to the affected categories.
