Pensions, work, VAT, IRES, productivity, measures for families and more. There are many chapters of the budget law that will arrive on the table of the Council of Ministers on Saturday 15 October. The number one of the Treasury, Pier Carlo Padoan, announced Thursday in the Chamber that the new maneuver will be worth a total of 24,5 billion euros. Of these, 15,1 will be used only to avoid the VAT increases foreseen for next year. On the other hand, 3,8 billion will be allocated to the development package and another 3,2 will go to social policies. The competitiveness measures, i.e. the Industry 4.0 strategy, will be financed with 400 million. The remaining two billion will be used to pay the costs for current policies.
Let's see what are, to date, the main measures envisaged by the new Budget law, remembering however that last minute changes cannot be ruled out.
AVOID THE VAT INCREASE
This is the most onerous chapter of the entire manoeuvre. To sterilize the safeguard clauses for 2017 (which would have led to an increase in VAT rates from 10 to 12% and from 22 to 24%) and part of those for 2018, the Government is allocating, as mentioned, 15,1 billion euros. The new budget law, however, also provides for an increase in VAT of 10,5 billion in 2018 and 19,6 billion in 2019. Increases that the Government will try to avoid, but which currently serve to balance the accounts paper.
PENSIONS
1) Pension advance
On an experimental basis, from 1951 May the Ape will allow those born between 1953 and 20 - and with at least 63 years of contributions - to retire from work up to three years and seven months before the requirements for the old age pension , then at 13 years old. The mechanism is divided into three different types. The voluntary one provides for an insured bank loan (but disbursed by INPS) which must be repaid in the first twenty years of effective retirement. Reimbursement will take place in 5 annual installments through a cut in the social security check of up to 4,6% for each year in advance (on average it will fluctuate between 4,7 and 2,5%), including bank interest (1 %) and insurance (50%). However, there will also be a fixed tax deduction of XNUMX% on the interest cost component of the loan.
The second type is the Ape social, paid entirely by the state. It will be guaranteed to four categories in difficulty (unemployed without social safety nets, disabled people, parents of disabled people and workers who have carried out "burdensome activities"). frommeeting this morning between the government and the trade unions it has emerged that to access the facilitated Ape it will be necessary to have at least 30 years of contributions if unemployed and 35 if you are an active worker. Furthermore, the income ceiling set by the Government for the Ape social is 1.350 euros gross.
The last type is the corporate Ape, under which the early retirement of workers involved in company restructuring will be financed by the employer.
2) Fourteenth
The fourteenth salary will also be granted to the 1,2 million pensioners with total personal incomes of up to one thousand euros a month. The 2,1 million pensioners who already received it, those with a monthly allowance of up to 750 euros per month, will see the extra month's salary increase by 30%.
3) Early workers
Workers who have paid at least 12 months of contributions, even non-consecutive, before turning 19 will be able to retire with 41 years of contributions, instead of the 42 years and 10 months currently envisaged, but only if they belong to a disadvantaged category (unemployed without shock absorbers social workers, the disabled and workers who have carried out "burdensome activities"). Furthermore, these same workers will no longer see their allowance cut if they retire before the age of 62 (while at the moment there is a 1% reduction for each year in advance).
4) Wearing jobs
Those who have carried out strenuous jobs for at least 7 of the last 10 years of their professional life (it no longer matters whether or not the last is included) will be able to retire up to 5 years in advance. Furthermore, for this category, starting from 2019, pensions will be decoupled from life expectancy, a mechanism which today moves forward the retirement age by one month each year. A series of bureaucratic simplifications is also on the way.
5) Free reunification of contributions
For those who have paid contributions to different entities, the reunification will become free. However, there will be a disadvantage compared to the past: it will no longer be possible to choose the most convenient calculation method among those of the various institutions, because the check will be calculated pro-rata, ie with the rules of each institution for the relative contribution quota. Furthermore, the free reunion only concerns public management, not the coffers of professionals.
6) No tax area
The income threshold that will allow pensioners to return to the no-tax area will rise to 8.125 euros gross per year, the same as for employees. The novelty does not only have to do with very low pensions, since the deduction on that portion of income applies to all pensioners who declare up to 55 euros gross per year.
CUT IN IRES, IRI ARRIVES FOR SMEs
As already envisaged in last year's maneuver, from 2017 the corporate income tax will drop from 27,5 to 24%. The corporate income tax (Iri) will be introduced at 24% for small and medium-sized enterprises.
GUARANTEE FUND
The Guarantee Fund for SMEs will be refinanced with 900 million euros, but Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has announced in recent days that part of these resources "will be brought forward to 2016 with an emergency measure".
PIR AND SPONSOR COMPANIES
For SMEs there are also Individual Savings Plans (PIR) and sponsor companies. The former are investment products designed especially for small and medium-sized enterprises which should allow for a tax exemption of up to 30 euros a year, within the cumulative limits of 150 euros and for investments maintained for at least three years.
The second measure, on the other hand, envisages encouraging investments in new businesses: the losses of start-ups, in fact, can be reduced in the budgets of the sponsoring companies for the first four years. At the same time, the tax deduction will rise from the current 19% for investments of up to 500 euros to 30% for investments of up to one million.
PRODUCTIVITY INCENTIVES
Productivity incentives on company bonuses for private sector employees will be strengthened. The income limit should rise to 80 euros to benefit from the 10% tax relief, with premiums of up to 4 euros.
SUPER DEPRECIATION
A further measure for businesses envisages strengthening the so-called super-depreciation, i.e. the possibility of depreciating at a tax level up to 140% of the value of new capital goods. The threshold could rise to 250% for investments in technology and digital.
RESTRUCTURING BONUS, ECOBONUS, MOBILE BONUS, SISMABONUS
Both the bonus on building renovations (at 50%) and the facilitation on interventions to improve the energy efficiency of buildings (at 65%) and the furniture bonus (at 50%) will be confirmed, while the earthquake bonus should be strengthened , the discount for anti-seismic renovations, which could go from 50 to 65 percent.
FAMILY BONUS AND XNUMX YEAR OLD BONUS
An intervention to support families with two or more children is also possible. The bonus should be linked to Isee and for the first year it could count on resources of at least 400 million. The intervention should not be aimed at families below the poverty line, for which other welfare instruments already exist, but at those just above the threshold who are in any case in conditions of economic difficulty.
The Government should then confirm the 500 euro bonus for eighteen-year-olds. The allocation for this measure would be 270 million euros, slightly less than the 290 foreseen by the past stability law.
WORK
1) Contribution relief for those who hire former interns
According to rumors, a relevant novelty could concern young people who have taken part in the school-work alternation and students who have benefited from apprenticeships in higher education and research. Basically, for companies that hire a former intern on a permanent contract within six months of obtaining a diploma or degree, the Government should guarantee a full tax exemption for three years up to a maximum of 8.060 euros per year. It would be a small-scale reissue of the 100% relief that in 2015 had made apprenticeship contracts fly. Reductions then reduced to 40% this year and which should be interrupted on December 31st.
2) Reductions for the South
On the other hand, it is possible that the tax relief in force this year (i.e. reduced to 40%) will be maintained only for companies hiring in the South and only for the categories established by EU rules (also because the measure will be financed with EU funds), i.e. young people up to 29 or without a diploma, unemployed for over six months and over 50.
3) Youth Guarantee
The enhancement of the Youth Guarantee should take place with a superbonus, also financed in this case with European funds.
4) Self-employed workers
A measure could also arrive in favor of self-employed workers in separate management and not registered in professional registers. This would be a discount on social security contributions of 27 to 26 percent.
GOODBYE EQUITALIA, A NEW AGENCY IS HERE
In the budget law "there will be an important intervention for the abolition of Equitalia and the creation of a different type of agency", announced Renzi speaking to the national assembly of the Anci.
RELEASE OF 800 MILLION FOR LOCAL AUTHORITIES
In recent days, Undersecretary Paola De Micheli has ensured "a recovery also in public investments, after a slowdown due to the entry into force of the rules on the new procurement code but which will be fully operational in 2017: for local authorities we are studying the possibility of release 800 million euros”.
STATE CONTRACT RENEWAL
The resources for the renewal of government contracts should amount to a total of 900 million euros, of which 300 already allocated with the latest Stability Law and 600 arriving with the new manoeuvre.
STATE: 10 HIRES AMONG LAW ENFORCEMENT, NURSES AND DOCTORS
Yesterday the Prime Minister also announced a maxi recruitment campaign: “There will be a signal on turnover – he said -. We can imagine having at least 10 new units for the forces of order, nurses and, perhaps, also for doctors, for which posts can be banned immediately”. The government then specified that with the budget law for 2017, three thousand precarious doctors and four thousand nurses will be stabilized.
SCHOOL: 25 NEW PLACES FOR TEMPORARY PEOPLE
Padoan and Renzi have not talked about it, but it is not excluded that with the maneuver there will also be new hires in the school, including ATA personnel and the stabilization of 25 precarious teachers.
ELECTRONIC INVOICING BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS
There could also be measures to strengthen the incentives for companies that adopt electronic invoicing between private individuals.
COVERS
Savings of 2,6 billion euros will come from the public spending review. Furthermore, according to the tables presented by the government to Parliament, in 2017 the maneuver provides for higher tax revenues of 8,5 billion euros: 5,8 of a permanent increase in revenue (of which a large part from VAT, which took off with the new billing mechanisms to the public administration) and 2,7 relating to other revenues, which according to government sources are attributable to the new round of voluntary disclosure.
As for the deficit/GDP, the Government in the Economic and Financial Document planned not to exceed 2% in 2017, but then asked the European Commission to be able to reach 2,4% in the light of two exceptional circumstances, the earthquake in Central Italy and the migrant emergency. It is probable that in the end an agreement will be found on 2,2%, with a deviation of 0,2% which is worth about 3,3 billion. If this were the case, the coverage would not be enough and the Government would probably have to resort to further cuts.
