The self-employed pay over 21 billion more in taxes than the web giants present in Italy

Italian micro and small businesses with less than 5 million euros in turnover - mainly made up of artisans, small traders and VAT numbers - in 2019 paid 21,3 billion euros more in taxation than the web companies present in Italy.  

Two years ago, in fact, the aggregate of subsidiaries belonging to the WebSoft sector recorded a turnover in our country of 7,8 billion euros; the number of employees employed in these realities was over 11 thousand units, while the Italian tax authorities paid only 154 million euros.

In the same year, however, the people of VAT numbers, with less than 5 million in turnover, generated a turnover of 814,2 billion and the tax contribution reached by these 3,3 million small businesses was 21,4 , 140 billion euros: an amount approximately XNUMX times higher than the revenue paid by the multinationals of the web.

It is clear that, by now, we are faced with an imbalance in the tax burden between small and large technology companies that the pandemic has further accentuated. Thanks to the boom in electronic commerce, for example, in the last 15 months the multinationals of the web present in Italy have further increased their revenues, while the very large part of micro and small enterprises has suffered a very worrying contraction in receipts. Therefore, if for the former the tax burden continues to remain modest, for the latter the tax burden has reached levels that are no longer bearable, which not even the anti Covid measures, approved until now, have helped to alleviate.

If the average level of taxation of these big techs is, according to Mediobanca's Research Department, 32,1 per cent, in our very small businesses it is around 60 per cent: practically double. Now, no one is asking for a tightening of the tax burden on large web companies, God forbid, if anything it is necessary to drastically lower the burden of taxes on small businesses which, even today, remain at unbearable levels.

However, it is clear that the lack of fiscal "transparency" of these technology companies is a problem. We therefore welcome with satisfaction the agreement signed in recent days between the European Parliament and the Council which requires multinationals, their subsidiaries with an annual turnover of over 750 million euros and operating in more than one country, to publish and make accessible the amount of taxes paid in each Member State.

What are the reasons why the subsidiaries present in Italy of the main internet multinationals can benefit from a tax rate of 32,1 percent? For the simple reason that about half of the pre-tax profit is taxed in countries with subsidized taxation which has given rise to a cumulative tax saving which, in the 2015-2019 period, was over 46 billion euros.

However, it is not only the foreign giants of the web that take advantage of the advantageous taxation granted by many European countries. For some years, in fact, some large Italian players have also transferred the tax or legal headquarters, perhaps only of a subsidiary, abroad. We are talking, for example, of Cementir, Campari, Eni, Enel, Exor, FCA, Ferrari, Ferrero, Illy, Luxottica Group, etc.

Many of these have decided to move their registered office to the Netherlands, for example, because there it is possible to benefit from both very favorable company legislation - which allows historical shareholders to have double the votes in the meeting, a modality that allows them to better defend themselves. from any takeovers from foreign investors - and possibly a rather generous tax treatment that the Dutch government reserves for any big company willing to open a tax office in Amsterdam. 

With these operations, formally flawless from a fiscal-corporate point of view, however, the tax base of those who pay taxes in Italy has been reduced, penalizing, as we have seen, in particular the small and very small businesses that, unlike large companies, they do not have the ability to leave their bags and luggage and move elsewhere.

The self-employed pay over 21 billion more in taxes than the web giants present in Italy

| Economics, ITALY |