The vice president of the council, Matteo #Salvini just can't relax and yesterday in Milano Marittima, between a crepes and an ice cream, "the ace with the sleeve" came out: "Found the money for the flat tax". He announced it via SkyTg24, they claim to have found the 15 billion to make the flat tax and warns: "It will do! It is not a whim of the League to lower taxes on families, businesses and workers. It's the only way to get this country going again. In Brussels, put your soul in peace: in 2020 not all, but many Italians will pay less taxes, open new businesses and there will be more hires. It will be worth at least 15 billion and the money has already been found. This is the only way to restart this country. In Brussels, put your soul in peace: in 2020 not everyone, but many Italians will pay less taxes, open new businesses and there will be more hires".
Salvini goes straight and has also announced that he wants to bring forward the budget law, to encourage the country's growth as soon as possible. Two announcements that have "unnerved" the government ally. The grillini replied, through Di Maio: "Tell us where you found the covers. Then invite Salvini not to destabilize the government with economic maneuvers in the press". Not only Di Battista, now also Salvini, helps the slow implosion of the Movement.
It is clear, if Salvini brings the Flat Tax home, the political death of the M5S is prefigured. However Salvini to make this announcement to surprise, must have had reassurances from his team of economists with in head Claudio Borghi, the father of the much contested Mini-bots.
Also disputed by the number two of the Lega #Giorgetti who yesterday said: “there are still those who believe in Borghi, on the minibots?".
In the Corriere della Sera Borghi explains: "Was a joke". "Giorgetti then phoned me to tell me that his was just a joke ".
Borghi then points out that there is no turnaround and specifies that the very fact that everyone is talking about it demonstrates the potential of the idea launched. Regarding Mario Draghi's doubts, the speech must be interpreted well: the president of the ECB said that the mini-Bots are either new money (illegal) or new debt (therefore outside the parameters of Maastricht).
I correct him by saying that this is not a new debt at all but of commitments that the State must already honor today.
Then Borghi specifies that "the project is valid and Salvini agrees". Perhaps from the Mini-bots, Salvini wants to release the announced 15 billion.
The alternative, says Borghi, is not to pay the debts of the Public Administration. I remain of the opinion that this is the only way to respect the commitments with the Italians while remaining within rules that we do not like. With the mini-Bots we can demobilize a part of the 15 billion credits blocked today.
Confindustria is against, Borghi comments, because they have not understood, they do not know what we are talking about. In July with Salvini we will convene all the economic categories and explain our projects on many points. And among these, there will also be mini-Bot. We will make it clear to everyone that these are nothing more than transferable tax credits, if we really want to change the name.
What are the "minibots"
An article by Republic did some clarity. They are a bit of a government bond, a bit of a trading currency. The minibots are a substitute for a Treasury bill that is not awarded in an auction by the Ministry of Economy, with a price (and therefore a yield) decided by the market. Rather, it is a non-interest bearing security with no maturity. Furthermore, while the government bonds are now dematerialized, the minibot, in the intentions of its proponents, is intended for paper circulation, with a chromatic imitation and format of the regular euro banknotes. Being in paper form, they cannot be used on the digital market (Amazon, Expedia, etc, ..)
The Bank of Italy and then the ECB warned of the risks of creating a 'parallel currency'. President Mario Draghi was succinct: "the minibots are either currency, and therefore they are illegal, or they are debt, and therefore the stock of debt rises". This approach is also shared by Confindustria, which assimilated them "to Monopoly money".
According to the League, these are “small denomination government bonds which, if issued in sufficient quantity, could become an alternative payment system to that with current banknotes. The advantage of minibots is that their creation and distribution would be totally controlled by the state without therefore having to risk being blocked from the outside. They would also have an important function of relaunching the economy. It is not a parallel currency because the European treaties prevent the printing of banknotes other than those in Euro and having two different currencies with different exchange rates in circulation at the same time would be disastrous, because the incomes would risk being in the currency of lower value while the debts would remain in Euros. The appearance of the minibot will be in all respects similar to a banknote but in reality it represents a small piece of public debt and is therefore a credit for the citizen who will own it. The minibots would be assigned informally and voluntarily to all creditors of the state in any form.
The League plans “to put around 70/100 billion minibots into circulation, practically equalizing the current stock of paper money in euros. The maximum quantity of mini-bots that can be immediately assigned (if desired) to a creditor of the State is 25.000 euros (with cuts from 5,00 to 100,00 euros), the amounts exceeding this value will be paid with the old system with times that we will try to make shorter but will hardly be immediate as will happen to those who choose to be welded in minibots. The guarantee of the value of the minibot is the State itself. The state accepts minibots as payment of taxes, so since the tax levy each year is 450 billion and the total number of minibots issued is, as we have said, about 70 billion, the "demand" will be sufficient to absorb all the supply even if everyone decides to repay the minibots with the fiscal instrument ".
The Bocconi professor, Tommaso Monacelli, in an article on La Voce he calls them "a fairy tale" and explains that if they are issued "to pay taxes", "they would be identical to a tax cut or, equivalently, to an increase in public debt". If “used for credits with the PA, they would be completely useless”. “The state would be exchanging one liability (the payments due) for another liability (the treasury bills issued to finance itself). The only reason for doing so would be to implicitly tax poor creditors. If a company were paid in minibots today, it could only discount its credit later when it was time to pay the taxes due ”.
