While waiting to solve the puzzle of expensive fuel with selective measures, the government is trying to buy time by exploiting the mobile excise duties, whose “treasure” will be accounted for in the coming days and will allow the 17-cent discount on diesel, with which the government tried to lighten the pump bill for the Italian exodus, to be extended a little longer. The hope of those who will have to put in black and white the extra VAT revenue for August is that the amount will be higher than the 20.5 million underlying the interministerial decree, signed by the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, and his colleague for the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, which allowed the cut decided at the beginning of the month by the Council of Ministers to be extended by two days (August 25 and 26). Also because, it is noted, international price increases continued in August with obvious effects on the costs of gasoline and diesel which, however, have not changed the habits of Italians on vacation, while they have impacted, and not a little, on inflation (as described in the other report on the page).
Towards more selective interventions
With the new extension, made possible by mobile excise duties, the government therefore hopes to gain a few more days (most likely a week) to then prepare the ground for the second phase of the game which should aim, it is the line shared within the majority, towards more selective interventions tailored to the most exposed sectors and the lower income brackets.
Divisions within the majority
But which ones? The range of possibilities is wide, but at the moment there are no certainties also because any hypothesis will have to first deal with the resources available. This last issue is one on which, as is known, there are divisions within the center-right, with Forza Italia continuing to block any attempt at top-down taxation (read windfall profits) on the oil sector. This sector has already provided, with the tax advance on dividends decided by the latest excise decree, the coverage to extend the current cut which will expire next September 5.
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Hypotheses under study
The solutions under study, therefore, are different and among these is also the hypothesis of a fuel voucher granted as a fringe benefit. The mechanism has already been tested in the past, but this time it would arrive almost at the end of the year with the risk of seeing the ceiling that companies allocate to this type of aid already exhausted. Not to mention, then, that selecting the recipients through the ISEE could turn the support into yet another gift to tax evaders because the mechanism has never been a guarantee of fairness and risks not distinguishing those in difficulty from those who are not. A similar problem could also concern the other hypothesis in circulation, that of an ad hoc intervention within the “Dedicated to you” card: a certainly very quick solution to guarantee aid but which, due to its characteristics, could exclude those who regularly use the car and struggle to bear the increases in diesel and gasoline, but do not benefit from the concession.
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