The block on the increase in local taxes will apply to everyone "with the exception of extraordinary situations linked to the regional surtax for the Regions in any health deficits". The Undersecretary for the Economy, Enrico Zanetti, said so on "La telephonata di Belpietro".
In Regions with a health deficit, “the law provides for an automatic increase in the Irpef and Irap surtaxes, but the presidents and councils can also choose to act on the tickets – explained the coordinator of the budget councilors, Massimo Garavaglia -. The possibility of acting also on the lever of the tickets is a choice that belongs to the presidents and the councils of the Regions, while the increase of the surtaxes Irpef and Irap, in this case, is an automatism”. In any case, added Garavaglia, also president of the Health sector Committee of the Conference of Regions, "it should be emphasized that the deficit in Health is not always the result of bad governance, but also of an excessive reduction of the Health Fund".
The increase in the Health Fund compared to last year is equal to 1 billion (but there were 3 more than those envisaged in the July agreement in the State-Regions Conference), "and yet the increase is such if it does not include the Lea (essential levels of assistance), which cost 800 million; the Fund may instead become incompetent if the contracts of doctors (equal to 400 million) and innovative drugs and drugs to combat hepatitis C (a total of 1 billion for the two items) are paid by the National Health Service", clarified the president of the Conference of the Regions, Sergio Chiamparino, at the press conference. “A response from the government is not irrelevant to understanding whether this extra billion put into the Stability Law in the Health Fund is sufficient or not,” he added.
Chiamparino has presented his resignation as president of the Conference of the Regions but has frozen them until the approval of the Stability Law, trying to put pressure on the government to change the announced budget-saving decree as soon as possible. This is an indispensable measure in order not to declare bankruptcy in Piedmont but also in other regions, Lazio and Campania in the lead, exposed for over 20 billion after the sentence of the Consulta last July which sanctioned the ban on using the resources of the various decrees debt savers to improve balance sheets or pay ongoing expenses rather than paying off suppliers. A game that is worth over 23 billion, of which 8,7 for the Lazio region alone and 3 for Piedmont, as certified this week by the Court of Auditors, which raised the alarm on the regional deficit of 5,8 billion.
“A region in these conditions cannot stay ahead of the others and for this reason I presented my resignation, but the problem – Chiamparino clarified to La Stampa – risks becoming explosive also for the other administrations. We are not asking for more money or to pay off the debt, but for a decree that establishes an ad hoc asset fund into which the advances assigned by the Economy can flow". Posted off-balance sheet, those advances can be repaid in thirty-year installments, while registered as liabilities they must be remedied in just seven years. An unsustainable installment of 800 million a year would therefore arrive for Piedmont.
