These are the indications provided to the Chamber by the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Luigi Casero, on the occasion of the examination and approval of some motions of parliamentary origin on the evolution of VAT.
The VAT system is coordinated at the European level - Casero recalled in responding to the various requests for intervention on the tax - and, therefore, all the actions that concern it must be defined at the Community level.
However, our country intends to promote action aimed at harmonizing the rate system, in order to make it more coherent and fair, eventually converging towards a single ordinary rate and reducing the national differentiations of the VAT systems.
Italy fully supports the adoption of a standard VAT return model for all EU Member States, proposed by the Commission last October and is actively participating in the development and definition of this model.
Just as it is working to accelerate the use of technological tools at the service of fiscal policy, including through the Digital Agenda programme. The objective is the introduction of electronic invoicing, with the telematic exchange of purchase and sales invoices and their registration in a single central unit. It would also be a fundamental tool for combating VAT fraud.
As regards more particular aspects of the tax, Italy is in favor of a special regime for small businesses, aimed primarily at reducing the administrative burdens of applying the ordinary VAT rules, in line with the indications provided by the Commission.
The Italian government is also in favor of extending the reverse charge mechanism and has asked the European Union to raise the application of cash VAT. There is an ongoing debate on this point, since the application at European level goes in the direction of not raising them, in order to preserve the principle of jurisdiction over the tax. But our country intends to insist on this point, to prevent undue financial burdens being passed on to businesses in cases where payment times are very long.
While waiting to proceed on these issues at the European level, it will be possible to insert essential principles already within our legislation to arrive at a unitary management system of the value added tax, and this will be possible - concluded Casero - at the implementation of the tax delegation that the Chambers should soon dismiss definitively.
