The 2025 budget law provides for an increase in the banks’ contribution to the Italian State, estimated at over 4,000 million euros, of which over 2,500 million in 2025 and over 1,500 million in 2026. To reach this figure, the Honorable Minister Giorgetti and the Deputy Minister Honorable Leo, they have applied a method already used in the past, limiting the immediate deductibility of some cost items, such as for example write-downs and losses on loans, which are fundamental items for bank balance sheets. These costs, now deductible only in the long term, obviously lead to higher taxes on the banks in the short term, but will be recoverable in the future. In short, this strategy used by the Italian government is not new.
Since 2018, with the Conte I Government, each executive has postponed the deductibility of these credits, essentially using them as, paradoxically, ATMs, that is, using banks as ATMs for the State, to obtain additional revenue. Deferred tax credits are significant and in 2023 the top six Italian banks had receivables of 25 billion euros, with Banco BPM at 40% of its capitalisation. The Hon. Giorgetti avoided the tax on extra profits which was already difficult to apply after the rejection of the so-called “Robin Hood Tax” in 2015. Therefore, by opting for a consolidated method, he avoided legal risks while sacrificing the immediate deductibility of the banks’ costs.
In short, the intervention of the Italian State, which with the budget law temporarily increases the banks’ tax revenue, demonstrates how easy it is to raise cash for the State in the short term.
However, this fiscal pressure could risk compromising the stability and competitiveness of banking institutions in the long term. In short, the situation is that of an Italian state that is now under the thumb of the European Union and of the politics that everyone accepts, all politicians, all governments of the right and left. Well, all governments have bowed to the will of the European Union, which is asking to raise cash, cut public spending and raise taxes.
Malvezzi Quotidiani – Humanistic Economics explained well with Valerio Malvezzi
