The incentives provided for by the new maneuver will increase digital payments by around 10%. Word of Luigi Federico Signorini, deputy general manager of the Bank of Italy. During a parliamentary hearing on the budget law, Signorini stressed that the propensity to use payment cards “is sensitive to monetary incentives similar to those prefigured by the maneuver (cash-back, bonuses, discounts, points). On the basis of generally estimated elasticities, an increase in electronic transactions of around 10% can be expected as a joint effect of the incentive measures envisaged by the Government”.
Bankitalia "looks favorably on initiatives that encourage the use of innovative tools - he added - that reduce transaction costs and can help catch up in the digitization of the Italian economy".
To encourage digital payments, the maneuver lowers the ceiling for cash payments again and a refund for those who buy goods and services electronically. This last incentive, Signorini points out, "will work well if it can be implemented in a simple and clear way, avoiding any bureaucratic burden for the parties involved".
To date, in Italy payments by card are equal to just over 30%: as in Spain, but much less than in France (70%) and Germany (45%).
BANKITALIA: "SHAREABLE" 2020 GDP +0,6%
As regards the general effects expected from the new manoeuvre, the deputy general manager of the Bank of Italy said that "the government's macroeconomic scenario for next year, which envisages product growth of 0,6 per cent, is confirmed to be acceptable and in line with our most recent assessments.” For 2021, however, “the growth target (1%) is slightly higher than the estimate recently released by the European Commission (0,7%); it is not out of reach, but to achieve it, it seems necessary that relaxed financial conditions are maintained and that the international framework does not further weaken".
"ATTENTION TO THE VAT CLAUSES ALSO IN 2021 AND 2022"
Signorini then points out that the economic maneuver reduces the safeguard clauses for the two-year period 2021-2022, but does not cancel them, and "the residual amount included in the programmatic scenario remains significant: one percentage point of GDP in 2021, 1,3 points in 2022. If they were abolished without compensation in 2021 and 2022, the mechanical effect of this abolition would be an increase in the deficit to 2,8 in 2021, and to 2,7 in 2022. The structural deterioration in the accounts would be considerable: around one percentage point of GDP. The need to find alternative coverage will therefore reappear”.
PBO: "EFFECTS OF MANEUVER ONLY +0,3% OF GDP IN THREE YEARS"
In another hearing on the maneuver before the House and Senate Budget Committees, the president of the Parliamentary Budget Office, Giuseppe Pisauro, reported that an analysis by the Upb himself shows that "the budget law would have an expansive effect on the Real GDP overall for the three-year period 2020-22 by 0,3 percentage points, just below that estimated by the Mef in the Dpb (0,4 points)".
In any case, according to Pisauro, the maneuver contains "a programming with too many uncertainties", above all because it sets a stable level of the deficit-GDP ratio for 2020 compared to previous years, postponing its reduction to subsequent years. Reduction to achieve which we still rely mainly on the safeguard clauses on VAT and excise duties (19 billion in 2021 and over 25 billion in 2022) which weigh down the budget planning framework without providing any indication of their future fate ".
In the manoeuvre, he continues, "diverging commitments are also made over the three-year period in terms of revenue and expenditure: net of the safeguard clauses, the former tend to decrease (from 7,5 billion in 2020 to 3,9 billion in 2022), the second to rise significantly (from 0,7 billion next year to 11,3 billion in 2022)”.
CONFINDUSTRIA: "INSUFFICIENT AND INEFFECTIVE MANEUVER ON GROWTH"
The negative opinion of Confindustria is even more explicit: "Although the maneuver contains some positive interventions, it is overall insufficient with respect to the needs of the country - said Marcella Panucci, director general of the association, in a hearing that took place on Monday - and risks not affect effectively the situation of substantial stagnation of the economy”.
But the industrialists of the North are above all in revolt: the presidents of the industrial associations of Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna have crushed the maneuver. Enrico Carraro (President of Confindustria Veneto) wrote to MPs to ask for changes to the plastic tax, sugar tax and company cars. "There is a healthy sensibility, but the government has played it against companies" is the summary of his observations. Marco Bonometti (Lombardy) attacks harshly: "Twenty billion have been wasted with the 100 quota, basic income and first with the 80 euros without creating employment and without reaching out to young people". Pietro Ferrari (Emilia Romagna) he speaks of "a government of improvisation with measures neither thought out nor cared for". AND Fabio Ravanelli (Piedmont) sees only "many shadows and only one light: having averted the VAT increase)"
