While Matteo Renzi talks about "small change" and puts forward alternative proposals, the accounts are still being dealt with in the Treasury. And the result is that, at least this year, the tax wedge cut will produce a increase in the pay slips of employees of just 40 euros gross. And not even since January, but since July.
Calculations in hand, this is the best that can be done to keep the numbers of the 2020 maneuver in balance. 29 billion overallIn fact, 23,1 they will go away to sterilize the VAT increases and another handful will be used to finance the so-called non-deferable expenses, such as missions abroad. Result: the 5 billion originally hypothesized by the Democratic Party to reduce labor costs, they are no longer there. You have to almost halve them, bringing the bar down to 2,7 billion. The expedient to lighten the load on public coffers follows the one used this year for the basic income: the start of the measure slip to the second half of the year, so as to impact on the accounts for only one semester.
Moreover, Employers are excluded from the operation: the cut in the tax wedge will be exclusively for the benefit of employees with annual income not exceeding 25-26 thousand euros gross per year. The audience is therefore the same as for the 80 euro bonus launched in 2014 by the Renzi government.
The problem is that, with these resources and these stakes, the maximum increase will be 40 euros gross per month. The government will discuss with the unions on the possibility of paying the sum in a single annual payment or split mini-increases in monthly paychecks. The result, however, does not change: the figure in question remains negligible, very far from what it would take to rekindle the consumption of Italians. And, perhaps, it will not even be enough to speak of an "expansive manoeuvre".
