The Italian Prime Minister has confirmed two key measures: raising the ceiling for cash payments to 5,000 euros and extending the flat tax for self-employed people.
Despite strong criticism from the Bank of Italy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Monday confirmed two key measures in her budget for 2023: raising the ceiling for cash payments to 5,000 euros and extending the flat tax for auto-entrepreneurs. The European Council decided on Wednesdayto set the ceiling for cash payments at 10,000 euros, twice as much as the Italian government“, argued Giorgia Meloni in a video posted on Facebook.
“I would therefore like to ask those who have told us that we want to promote tax evasion in the European Union, do they want to promote fraudsters? I do not think so“, she underlined, without specifying that the European Union (EU) lowers this ceiling while Italy raises it. Raising the ceiling for cash payments, which goes from 2,000 to 5,000 euros, risks “come up against the need to continue to reduce tax evasion“, had warned last Monday one of the leaders of the Bank of Italy Fabrizio Balassone.
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More than 21 billion euros in energy aid
The central banker had also criticized the decision of the government bringing together right and extreme right to give traders the right to refuse their customers payment by bank card for amounts less than 60 euros without incurring sanctions, which according to him could favor the ‘tax evasion. Fabrizio Balassone recalled that “the definition of effective administrative sanctions in the event of refusal“to accept electronic payments”was one of the goalsto be achieved by Italy within the framework of the European Recovery Plan, of which it is the first beneficiary. Tax evasion, particularly that concerning VAT, weighs heavily on the economy of the peninsula and costs Italy around 100 billion euros a year.
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Giorgia Meloni also defended the extension of a flat tax of 15% for auto-entrepreneurs to annual incomes of 85,000 euros instead of 65,000 currently. Yet Fabrizio Balassone had estimated that “in times of high inflation, the coexistence of a flat tax regime» for the self-employed and «of a scheme subject to progressiveness“leads”an additional penaltyfor employees.
“An employee has two-thirds of his contributions paid by the employer, a self-employed person pays the contributions in full“, for his part assured Giorgia Meloni. The draft budget, which provides more than 21 billion euros in support measures for households and businesses in the face of soaring energy prices, must be approved by Parliament before the end of the year.
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