According to the CGIA, the lockdown should now be applied to taxes. In particular, to those paid by the self-employed and by small and micro enterprises with a turnover of up to 1 million Euros per year which, in the absence of a sharp cut in fixed costs, risk closing definitively. The coordinator of the Study Office Paolo Zabeo states:
"We propose for 2020 to eliminate the tax revenue for micro and small businesses. That is, stop in Irpef, Ires and Imu on the sheds. These activities, however, will be required to pay local taxes in order not to penalize Regions and Municipalities. For the Treasury, the lost revenue would amount to just over 28 billion euros. A very important, but necessary, cut in revenue, otherwise many small businesses will close forever, causing a hole in the state budget in the following year. "
Sole proprietorships, self-employed workers, freelancers and partnerships affected by this tax relief measure would be around 4,9 million, equal to approximately 89 percent of all economic activities in the country.
In terms of revenue, the CGIA Studies Office estimates that € 28,3 billion would be missing from the Treasury, divided as follows: Irpef 22,7 billion; 4,2 billion IRES; 779 million substitute tax paid by VAT numbers that have joined the flat-rate regime and approximately 500 million euro of Imu on the sheds (cat. D).
(see Tab. 1).
From the activities with less than 1 million euros in turnover, Mayors and Presidents of the Region would continue to collect their entitlements: we estimate 3 billion Irap, 2,5 billion Imu, 1,6 billion additional regional income tax and 610 million euros of municipal additional income tax. Overall, therefore, for the current year they should pay 7,7 billion euros to the local self-government. Declares the secretary Renato Mason:
“Only with a drastic cut in taxes and a strong injection of non-repayable liquidity can we save the world of small businesses. Otherwise, we risk an unprecedented death that will desertificate many productive areas and many historical centers of small and large cities. To avoid all this, it is necessary to intervene immediately. Time is not an independent variable. Many craftsmen and small shopkeepers are exhausted and can still recover if we give them certainties. That is, paying far less taxes and having sufficient financial resources available to deal with this situation of serious difficulty ".
For the CGIA the model to be imitated is the German one. In Germany, in fact, the anti-Covid-19 measures introduced to support small and medium-sized enterprises reached 50 billion euros. For example, micro companies with up to 10 employees received up to € 15 in direct transfers within a few days.
Of course, Germany has a public debt which is half of ours, but if we do not help the people of the VAT numbers, the latter risk jumping and with them a good part of the occupation. We recall that in companies with fewer than 20 employees, approximately 60 percent of Italians work net of civil servants and financial services.
It is better then that the central State will go into debt and it will surely suffer a strong increase in public debt, even if, following the measures put in place by the ECB and those that will be introduced in the coming months by the EU, it will still remain solvable.
We emphasize that slightly less than 70 percent of our public debt belongs to Italian banks / insurance companies, families and businesses. Furthermore, families, between financial savings and real estate assets, can count on almost 10 trillion Euros of resources. A figure approximately 4 times higher than the absolute value of our public debt.
The need, however, is to be quick. Take action as soon as possible, because there are many small companies that report, in particular those that have not incurred the lockdown, of not being able to collect their fees from customers, due to the lengthening of payment times. A bad habit that has always characterized the commercial relationship between our Public Administration and businesses is now also taking hold in transactions between private businesses.