As had already happened abroad, and in particular in Great Britain and France, the Pir (Individual Savings Plans) were the positive novelty, introduced by the Renzi and Gentiloni governments, which in 2017 had made the Italian stock market take off with tax breaks for those who invest for at least 5 years and direct resources, in accordance with the law, towards listed and unlisted small and medium-sized enterprises.
But with the latest Budget Law, the Government has managed to throw the PIRs into a tailspin because the regulatory innovations introduced - in particular those that oblige asset managers to invest 3,5% of funding on companies listed on the AIM of the Borsa Italiana and another 3,5% on closed-end funds (from private equity to venture capital) – require implementing decrees. But these decrees do not exist yet and, in their absence, both the newly minted PIRs and those launched in 2017 remain blocked. Only those who have already subscribed to the PIRs in the past can feed them with new investments, but if a saver has not opened previously a Pir cannot sign it now.
The risk is that the paralysis of the Pir will last for months. Not only that, but relations between Italy and the European Commission are also escalating again, which senses the possibility of state aid in the new PIRs due to tax breaks.
The result of the chaos in which the Government has sent the PIRs means that individual savings plans cannot currently be subscribed to and that forecasts speak of four months for the launch of the new implementing decrees. To get out of the impasse, the government is thinking of a transitional rule or, alternatively, a sprint decree.
However, the mess is done, with damage for savers, for small companies and for the financial industry. The goal of pushing PIRs more towards small businesses could also have been noble but, as always, the devil is hidden in the details and, as the director of the Assogestioni Research Office, Alessandro Rota, declared to Il Sole 24 Ore, "with the obligation to invest minimum quotas in venture capital funds, there is the risk of intervening on an instrument that works to make it do what it cannot do”.
