Harsh criticism from the unions after the meeting at Palazzo Chigi between the executive in view of the approval of the draft law on the reform of the tax system. On the same wavelength the comment of the CISL secretary, Sbarra: “Ready to mobilize”. Uil asks to “cut the wedge by 5 points”. Ugl’s comment was more accommodating: “Ambitious project but we await details”. Government representatives: “Maximum openness to dialogue”. Wednesday the meeting with companies
The meeting between the government and the trade unions in view of the approval of the enabling bill on the reform of the tax system “did not go well in terms of substance or method”. At the end of the discussion at Palazzo Chigi, the deputy general secretary of the CGIL, Gianna Fracassi, explained: “Today there was a description of the enabling law 48 hours before the Council of Ministers, so it’s really not going”. For the unions there was a lack of “involvement and we do not agree either on the reduction of the three rates, because it favors high and very high incomes, or on the flat tax, which is outside the progressive dimension envisaged by the Constitution. We are absolutely not happy and satisfied. This is not an issue that concerns everyone”. For its part, the government, in a note, said it had ensured “to the unions present maximum openness to dialogue and confrontation throughout the parliamentary process of approving the delegation and subsequent implementing measures”. A table with trade associations and professional orders is scheduled for tomorrow. “A method – reads the press release -, that of dialogue, which bears witness to the Government’s will to achieve a Reform that is as concrete and shared as possible”.
Palazzo Chigi: “After the delegation, the decrees within two years”
The timing, announced by the Government representatives”, “provides for the adoption of the delegated decrees – which will contain the implementation discipline of the principles expressed in the delegation – within 24 months from the date of entry into force of the enabling law”. Palazzo Chigi has defined the reform “a broad delegation to structurally revolutionize the Italian tax system 50 years after the last comprehensive reform dating back to the 1970s (Delegation Law No. 825 of 1971).” The government representatives “illustrated principles and timing of the ‘New Tax’ redesigned by the Meloni Government which passes from an organic revision of the Italian tax system. Overall, the Reform aims to favor dependent work, with the primary objective of helping families, young people and women, reducing the tax burden for companies, increasing employment and investments, simplifying obligations, encouraging the collaboration with the tax authorities and to encourage the return of capital”. Palazzo Chigi underlines that “in this context, one of the main objectives that the Meloni government intends to vigorously pursue is the fight against tax evasion, an issue on which specific measures are being studied for to encourage the spontaneous compliance of taxpayers, with the primary aim of arriving at a ‘Fisco Amico’ who dialogues with the taxpayer”.
Government representatives: “The reform will encourage the return of capital”
Among the objectives of the tax reform there is also that of “simplifying obligations, encouraging collaboration with the tax authorities and encouraging the return of capital”. Palazzo Chigi also explained that “one of the main objectives” that the government “intends to vigorously pursue – we read – is the fight against tax evasion” on which specific measures are “being studied to encourage the spontaneous compliance of taxpayers, with the primary aim of arriving at a ‘Fisco Amico’ who dialogues with the tax payer”.
Fracassi (Cgil): “Don’t touch the welfare state. With Cisl and Uil we will evaluate initiatives”
“There is a problem with resources, because this operation costs many billions, we would like to understand how and how much these interventions are financed, we would like to avoid this operation being to the detriment of the welfare state, health care, education”, said the deputy general secretary of the CGIL, Fracassi, after the meeting with the government. “We need a serious fight against tax evasion – he remarked – but unfortunately we don’t have a favorable precedent because there were amnesties in the budget law. It is not possible to exclude workers and pensioners who represent the majority of those who pay Irpef and they are about 90% of taxpayers. There is very little about them. With Cisl and Uil there is a unified platform, we will evaluate the initiatives to be put in place. We no longer accept being informed of things that have already been defined”. Fracassi added that the government “has not said what the three personal income tax brackets will be, they are evaluating the rates”.
Sbarra (Cisl): “If the government does not respond to us, they are ready to evaluate mobilization”
Even the leader of the CISL, Luigi Sbarra, was critical at the end of the meeting, emphasizing the “inadequacy” of the confrontation put in place by the government on the tax reform and the “urgency” of having answers. “I would add that we need to speed up social security, pensions, health and safety, non-self-sufficiency, a relaunch of investments, job quality and stability. If the Government responds to our demands and our priorities, well, otherwise we are ready to evaluate together with the CGIL and Uil the mobilization initiatives to be put in place in support of our reasons “. Leaving Palazzo Chigi, Sbarra explained: “There were few arguments that the government presented to the table: there is talk generally of a reduction in tax rates but we do not know if it stands out at the top or bottom, there is talk of a revision of the brackets and Here, too, nothing has been said to us.” The Cisl leader then indicated: “We have basically asked for a permanent, structured discussion with the trade union organizations on the tax issue. We are waiting for the Council of Ministers but we have indicated the urgency to the Government to respond to our priorities”.
Cisl leader: “Tax reform must ensure the principle of progressiveness”
“We have set the contents of our unitary platform”, continued the CISL leader, specifying that the request of the confederal trade unions is for “a tax reform that meets criteria that ensure the principle of the progressiveness of the levy. We need to start with a strong reduction of taxes on middle and popular incomes from work and retirement, i.e. reducing taxes on those who pay them every year down to the last penny in this country”. Sbarra underlined that the unions have “represented the urgency of raising the strategy to combat tax evasion and avoidance which is worth 100 billion euros of lost revenue every year in the state coffers: there is a lot of VAT evasion, c “there is a lot of income tax evasion, there is a lot of tax evasion. We have placed the urgency of determining tax reduction interventions on the fruits of national and company collective bargaining. The CISL secretary then stated that among the requests made there is “the restitution of fiscal drag at a time when wages, salaries and pensions are being massacred by double-digit inflation. We have set the need to restore the fringe benefits as we had negotiated them with the previous government: they had been brought to three thousand euros, today we feel that there is a return to the past at 258 euros”.
Uil: “Cut the wedge by 5 points now with fight evasion”
According to the confederal secretary of the Uil, Domenico Proietti, “the government has limited itself to explaining to us the contents of the fiscal delegation in brief. This delegation must address as a priority an epochal turning point in the fight against tax evasion, a real fight without which there can be a real tax reform. On the merits, the reformulation of the personal income tax rates does not provide an answer to the need to cut the tax wedge, which we must cut by 5 points now, not over the course of the legislature” and on which “we can use the 20 billion recovered this year”. The Uil leader remarked that it is necessary to “maintain the progressiveness” of the tax levy and that “we are against the flat tax”. On the method “we have asked the government to start a real discussion, not only of information but an interlocution on the merits. If the government does this, we are ready to put forward proposals that we have already presented to previous governments and which so far have had no responses “, Proietti adds, also underlining that being a proxy “there are 24 months for the implementing decrees so there would be time. The fact remains that the discussion could have started months ago and that would have led us to give a different opinion”.
Ugl: “Measures in favor of work but we await the details”
The comments of the general secretary of the Ugl, Paolo Capone, are less harsh. On taxation, he explained, “the Government has an ambitious plan to carry out an overall reform”, on the merits “there is more than something concerning work but we will then have to intervene in detail when we have a definitive text”. For the Ugl leader, “there are a number of interventions in favor of work that seem to us in line with the requests we have made, but we will have to see them written in detail and then we will make an assessment”.
Source-tg24.sky.it