Taxes (few) in shunting and company cars

The maneuver is under attack due to the perception that new taxes are being introduced. But these new taxes amount to only 2 billion against a maneuver of 30 billion and the total tax burden remains substantially stable because other taxes (the tax wedge on employees) are falling. In the end this government does better than the previous one also from the point of view of the fiscal pressure since the previous one had increased it through the amnesties. But some new revenues must inevitably be found if on the one hand we want to keep both 100% of the citizenship income and the flat tax of the self-employed intact and on the other we want to avoid increasing VAT.

We can and must discuss which taxes and how many taxes (and who must pay them), but nobody in good faith can think that a stability law can be made like this without increasing the revenue.

This law of stability:

1. does not affect the expenses of the past (100, citizenship income, the facilitated flat rate for self-employed workers);
2. spends 15 billion over three years to reduce the tax wedge, or, more simply, to extend and increase the benefit of 80 euros to 4.5 million more workers;
3. cancels 33 billion VAT clauses (23 this year and 10 for next year), that is two thirds of the total of 50 billion VAT clauses received by the previous government.

Added to this is the saving of 38.5 billion euro related to the reduction of the spread over 3 years, that is – translated into money – the narrow escape to which the irresponsibility of the previous government had condemned us. But this saving, although very high, alone would not have been sufficient for the financial coverage of the budget law.

It is therefore inevitable to make choices regarding new income. We have chosen a line marked by social and environmental sustainability: hence the taxes on sugary drinks and disposable plastic. Hence also the latest version of the intervention on company cars, which in essence is a reduction of the current incentives modulated according to emissions.

Today the situation is this: a company that bears the cost of a company car assigned to the employee for work-related use only, enjoys a large tax benefit and the value of the car does not affect the employee's income at all. This case history remains unchanged.
When, on the other hand, the company car is assigned to the employee for mixed use (so the employee uses it either to go to work or to go on vacation or to go shopping) and therefore represents for him a benefit that supplements the economic treatment , the company deducts 70% of the cost while the employee pays taxes and contributions on 30% of the benefit received (calculated in a lump sum). All this happens regardless of the worker's income, that is the benefit is equally enjoyed by the top executives of the companies as well as you make lower level employees among those who access the company car (in the companies that have a very large sales force the company fleet is very numerous and also affects employees involved in commercial activities but classified at a medium-low level).
With the budget law the benefits remain unchanged for electric and hybrid cars, while for cars that are "low-polluting" the taxable by the employee goes from 30% to 60%, for the most polluting cars it reaches 100%.

The point is not taxing (we said that to a minimum it is necessary) and not even if the taxes (green) are right but how much and how to tax. It is clear that if you double the taxation on company cars from one year to the next, the middle class (the one that today votes PD) is worried.

So in my opinion two considerations must be made to correct the norm. The first is that we are not the only ones who care about company car benefits. To cite only two OECD studies (https://www.oecd.org/env/tools-evaluation / company-car-taxes.htm) the tax benefits of company cars amounted to 26 billion euros in 2012 and environmental costs to 116 billion euros (OECD notes that the tax benefit is not related to the kilometers traveled and company cars travel on average 3 times more km of private cars).

But on average the other OECD countries tax company cars at 50% us only at 30% and if tomorrow we pass to 60% we would go from below the OECD average to above average in just one year. In more than half of the new car registrations are company cars, with the automotive table just opened at the Ministry of Economic Development I believe that, in terms of industrial policy, a more gradual approach is appropriate.

The second consideration is that for how they work now the tax benefits of company cars (which we remember are public money) do not have a value limit with respect to the employee's total remuneration and have no limits with respect to income. So to make the intervention fairer one could follow the path that was taken for corporate welfare (the one conditioned by union agreements and productivity goals). For corporate welfare the rule is that you can convert your productivity bonus from money to welfare benefits tax-free but the tax benefit is only in the limit of 3000 euros per year and only for those with gross wages lower than 80 thousand euros.

It is clear that Italian wages have been stagnant for 20 years and in recent years companies and workers have rightly used every way to increase the net payroll (including company cars!) But this is still public money. While it is clear that it makes no sense to raise taxes (ergo reduce the exemption) on the company car to an employee who earns € 40,000 a year, I don't see why I should subsidize the flaming car of employees who earn hundreds of thousands ( if not millions) of euros a year and I don't see why I should allow unfair companies (with employees first of all) to pay them little in cash and so much in a company car. Among the 550,000 company cars in circulation today there could also be some other reason for differentiation that is not only that of CO2 emissions. Parliament also exists for this.