Thirteenth supplier companies at risk. Asl, Governors and Mayors do not pay debts

The Mestre CGIA announces that of the 12 billion euros made available by the Conte government to allow the ASL, the Regions and the local authorities to pay trade payables due by 31 December 2019, only just over 2 billion have been requested. from these public entities to the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to pay off their creditors. In short, once again the companies that work for the Public Administration (PA) have remained largely dry-mouthed. Yet another demonstration of an all-Italian malpractice which, even in the middle of the Covid period, shows no sign of fading. Indeed, the risk that the situation will further regress is quite probable.

The coordinator of the Paolo Zabeo Studies Office says:
"Among the general effects of the current crisis, the drop in orders and non-payments, many companies supplying public bodies insistently denounce the lack of liquidity and it cannot be excluded that, in December, many will have great difficulty in paying the thirteenths to their employees ".
A problem, that of non-payments by the State and its peripheral joints, which, unfortunately, we have been dragging on for decades.
"The question would be solvable  - concludes Zabeo - if by law the straight, direct and universal compensation between the debts of the PA to companies and the tax and social security liabilities of the latter were allowed. An automatism that would re-establish a principle of legal civilization: the supplies of goods or the provision of services must be honored by the public client as required by law; within 30 days or at most 60 in certain sectors, such as healthcare ".
However, not all companies that work for public administrations wait biblical times to be paid. The secretary of the CGIA Renato Mason underlines: "The Court of Auditors, in fact, has denounced that in recent times public bodies are tending to honor with punctuality the deadlines of greater amount, instead deliberately delaying the payment of the more modest ones. A conduct which, obviously, is penalizing small and very small companies which generally work for contracts, supplies or services that have smaller economic dimensions, compared to those assigned to medium-large enterprises. Therefore, without available liquidity, many artisans and as many small entrepreneurs find themselves in serious difficulty and, ironically, many of these risk closing their business, not for debts, but for too many credits not yet collected ".

The flops of the last few months

With the "Relaunch decree", the Government has made 12 billion euros available to ASL, Regions and Local Authorities to pay off at least part of the accumulated trade debts by the end of 2019. At the deadline of last 7 July - date by which the local authorities had to ask the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti for liquidity advances to pay off old debts - the resources requested were close to 2 billion euros. Following this modest result, with the “August decree” the Executive reopened the terms: from 21 September to 9 October, local authorities had a new opportunity to access these resources. A second opportunity which, unfortunately, was a failure. To draw on a thirty-year loan at a rate of 1,22 per cent made available by the Cassa to pay its creditors, very few healthcare companies and as many local administrations have thought of it, for a total amount of only 110 million euros.

The current account debts of the PA continue to increase

According to the data presented by Eurostat last October, in the last 4 years the trade debts in our country of current account only have been constantly increasing. In 2019, the stock touched 47,4 billion euros. Despite the political promises and spending commitments made by the public administrations, supplier companies are finding it increasingly difficult to get paid. But the most inadmissible thing about this whole affair is that no one is able to state how much the total commercial debt of our PA officially amounts to; that is to add to the current account payables also the share referring to the capital account, although for some years companies that work for the public have been obliged to issue an electronic invoice. We also remember that the advent of the e-bill should have eliminated another big problem that haunts the suppliers of public bodies: namely the split payments.

Double penalty with split payment 

Lo split payments, in fact, it was introduced in 2015. This measure obliged the central administrations of the state to withhold VAT on the invoices received and to pay it directly to the tax authorities. The declared objective is to combat tax evasion, avoiding that once the payment has been collected from the public client, the private company no longer pays the value added tax to the tax authorities. The mechanism, certainly effective in preventing the dishonest entrepreneur from paying VAT to the Treasury, has however caused many financial problems to all those who have nothing to do with tax evasion. That is to say almost all the companies that work for the PA. In other words, for some years these companies have no longer collected VAT, an operation that allowed them to meet their cash needs in the short term, and in the meantime the volume of non-payments has continued to increase.

Some numbers on PA payments

In Italy, public contracts total about 140 billion euros per year and the number of supplier companies is about one million. As regards the Promptness of Payments Indicator (ITP) of the Italian ministries, the situation in the 3rd quarter of 2020 has slightly improved compared to the previous periods, even if the general situation is still "unacceptable". The most critical conditions concern the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, which between July and September paid the invoices received with an average delay of almost 20 days, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, with 34 days of delay and the Ministry of the Interior which finally, it honored the payments after 64 days from the expiry of the contract. Finally, others have not yet updated the data on their website. We refer to the Ministry of Education / University, Justice and Health: the latter has not even published those referring to the first two quarters, again this year. Please note that ministries are required by law, like all other public bodies, to include the ITP on their site quarterly, among other things.

Thirteenth supplier companies at risk. Asl, Governors and Mayors do not pay debts

| Economics, EVIDENCE 1 |