Compare the assets held by each family unit with the income declared to the tax authorities in the longest time allowed by the information system of the tax register.
(To Cleto Iafrate, General Secretary SIM Guardia di Finanza and ARDeP Vice President) In the last twenty years our debt has more than doubled, last March its amount was equal to 2.358,8 billion(source Bank of Italy). We are the European country that spends the highest amount ever on interest on debt. Also last year we had to take out a billionaire check to pay the interest to investors all over the world, on pain of a declaration of insolvency. A check for 65 billion, the equivalent of two budgetary measures.
If the debt were reduced, we could use these funds to do something else, for example, we could use them for social policies. Consider that Germany and France reserve almost 10% of their public spending on the school, against Italy's 7,5. Moreover, France has a much higher spending budget than Italy, amounting to over 1.200 billion, against our 850 billion.
Also in the last twenty years, the wealth of Italian families has also grown progressively, to the point of almost touching the threshold of 10 thousand billion, over four times the value of debt, of which real assets (housing, land) are worth about 6.000 billion and financial (accounts, deposits, securities, shares, etc.), net of liabilities (mortgages, personal loans), are worth approximately 4.000 billion.
Simplifying the data and reasoning by arithmetic means, we can say that it is as if every Italian resident had a debt of around 39 thousand euros and at the same time held assets of around 160 thousand euros (made up of 60% real estate and 40% by cash).
This mass of wealth, of course, is not equally distributed. It seems that the 50% of wealth has ended up in the hands of 10% of families.
There is no reliable data on tax evasion, the only certainty is that in Italy evasion has been traveling to 12 for decades. In fact, every year escape taxation around 270 billion,that if they were taxed, they would pay no less than 100 billion in taxes to the treasury.
Reasoning here also for arithmetic means, we can say that it is as if each family concealed from the tax authorities each year about 11 thousand euros of income (families are 24,5 million). Families obviously do not escape all and not all in the same way. It is estimated that for some categories of tax payers the evasion is even equal to 80% of the total income produced.
In reality, precisely the failure to collect these funds has led to the enrichment of some families, to the detriment of others, which for decades have suffered a truly excessive tax burden.
That being the case, if to reduce public debt we thought we would levy a property tax without a prior assessment of the real provenance of the assets, we would do nothing but add injustice to inequity. This is because in some assets only savings have been added and in others also the proceeds of tax evasion, thanks to legislation that is too timid in the fight against self-laundering. Consider that until the 2015 the self-laundering activity - in whatever form it was carried out - was not punishable as the conduct of the launderer was considered as a natural continuation of the presumed crime.
The criterion for identifying assets
If the word "fiscal equity" makes sense, then it is necessary to proceed with a "tax deed of tax", that is to say, first of all, tax assets of illicit origin must be taxed.
A solution could be to "identify" upstream lists of tax payers who present serious inconsistencies in relation to the ratio between declared income and assets held.
More specifically, it is a question of comparing the assets held by each family unit with the income declared to the tax authorities in the longest period of time allowed by the information system of the tax registry, the entire working life or in any case the last 15 - 20 years. In this way, the “incongruous” assets to be taxed could well be identified.
Nothing to fear for those who do not have "skeletons in the closet". With this method, in fact, only the assets in the name of nominees would come to light, those coming from illegal activities and, in particular, from the self-laundering of evasion.
It is, I repeat, an extraordinary tax to be used to reduce public debt, which would only affect incongruous assets.In this way each citizen would contribute to the reduction of debt in a very different way based on his fiscal loyalty. The tax with which to tax assets, in fact, does not only depend on the amount of assets, but also on the income declared in the long term considered.
Once the software has selected the "incongruous tax payers", they will always be able to demonstrate the legitimate origin of their assets.
The same discourse should be extended to the inheritance and gift tax, a calculation criterion based on the same principle should be envisaged.
Inheritance tax should depend on the congruity of the inheritance axis with the income produced and declared alive by the de cuius.
In conclusion, after decades of scandalously high avoidance, it is believed that this proposal could prove to be an effective tool, certainly not the only one, to reduce public debt, but above all useful for recovering equity, solidarity and social cohesion.
As regards the feasibility of the proposal, it should be considered that the data relating to the real estate assets are all available in the tax register and those relating to the movable assets are available from theAccount register and financial reports. An archive in which all financial operators (Banks, Post Offices, etc.) annually transmit the balance and average stock of all existing relationships relating to the previous year.
The first step to take would be to make the submission of the Single Substitute Declaration (DSU) mandatory for everyone, which today is presented only by taxpayers who request the ISEE model in order to gain access to tax advantages or social benefits. Consider that the data of the movable assets to be declared in DSU up to the 2015 was self-certified. From that year on, the obligation to verify what was declared by the INPS was introduced based on the results of the Account Register and financial reports. Well, the first year (the one in which the checks started) declarations with zero assets have gone from almost 70% to 16%. This means that until the year 2015, around 54% of self-certifications submitted for ISEE purposes were unfaithful. This percentage, in addition to casting a shadow of suspicion on the reliability of any self-declared income data, demonstrates how useful and efficient the registry of accounts and financial reports were to correct the vices of Italians.
Well, the proposal presented above provides for the extension, in anti-evasion terms, of the use of the Account Register and financial reports.