Financial, Bank of Italy: more money for families with the maneuver

The president of Confindustria Carlo Bonomi summarizes: industrialists «expected support for family purchasing power, on the one hand, and business investments, on the other». That is why he considers the budget law currently being prepared by Parliament as “reasonable on the one hand, incomplete on the other”. Because, explains Bonomi, “cutting the wedge is positive, even if it only concerns the workers. But the issue of the competitiveness of the production system is completely absent.” The number one industrialist highlights: «There is a substantial absence of measures to support private investment and a strategy aimed at growth and competitiveness. Without growth there will not be adequate resources to pay public debt and support social well-being.” And further: «We are facing a very rare occasion in which an expansionist maneuver takes money from the production system. Basically, we are negative by 1 billion.” The Court of Auditors rather invites us to pay attention to the divergent pressures that accompany the budget law. “The financial maneuver for the next three years follows a very narrow path in which different pressures and needs must find a difficult balance, ensuring at the same time the process of rebalancing accounts and a gradual reduction in the debt/GDP ratio”, comments the president of the Accounting Judiciary, Guido Carlino. Istat takes into account the impact of measures in favor of interest rates birth rate and parenthood. There are just over 800 thousand women with multiple children covered by the tax benefit provided for in the budget law: 600 thousand mothers with two children, for whom the benefit will be experimental for a period of one year, and 214 thousand with three or more children, which will instead benefit from a structural measure. Together they represent 27.8% of employed mothers with at least one minor child, 10.0% of employed women and 8.4% of employed women.

The cut in the fiscal and contributory wedge – the heart of the budget law, which weighs 11 billion euros in the measure – was at the center of the hearings in the Senate on the budget law. The Bank of Italy considers the confirmation in 2024 of the cut for income up to 35 thousand euros to be an “important objective” but invites the government to find “a guideline for the measure in the medium term”. The Via Nazionale estimates presented at the Senate hearing speak of an average of 600 euros more in salary next year for families affected by the combination of the wedge cut and the beginning of the reform of the Irpef bands. Istat, however, estimates a net reduction in contributions equal to an average of 1,112 euros per year for each family and 800 euros per year at the individual level. Cutting the wedge, ISTAT further notes, “affects approximately 12 million families (more than 45% of the total), in approximately 25% of cases the recipients of the intervention are two or more family members”. However, Confindustria approves the government’s choice to focus on supporting low-middle incomes, but rejects what it defines as the “substantial absence of a growth strategy”, highlighting the lack of investments to support companies. Although the Court of Auditors reads the maneuver as a “very narrow path in which different pressures and needs must find a difficult balance”, where finding resources will be essential “to support the fight against tax evasion and implement the Pnrr”. Municipalities, Provinces and Regions criticize the text of the measure, seeing services to citizens put at risk by cuts in local authorities. On the last day of hearings at Palazzo Madama, the PBO and the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, will be heard. The Commission will then meet to establish the deadline for presenting the changes, with the government expected to produce a text to partially change the rules on pensions, given the opposition of some categories, starting with doctors who denounce the reduction of the monthly allowance. .