“No assets as long as the League is in government. They will have to pass over my body to tax the home of the Italians.” Matteo Salvini returns to putting taxes, pensions and above all bank profits at the center of the League’s political agenda. The occasion is in Pinzolo, Trentino, during the traditional public meeting of the Northern League in Piazza Carera, organized by the Trentino League.
“The answer is not to ask those who have always given. Which sector is earning the most? The banks”, attacks the deputy prime minister. Then he puts the numbers on the table: “In the last three years, only the top two Italian banks, which these days are making takeovers in Siena, Germany and Milan, have made profits of 54 billion euros. The first six months they made profits of 11 billion.”
Salvini against the banks: “Part of the profits goes to pensions and security”
“These profits derive from the difference between passive and active interest, that is, between the money that the bank gives you on the money you have in the account, i.e. zero, and the interest. I am capable of doing business like this too”, claims the Northern League leader.
Hence the proposal: “Asking back a small part of profits to reinvest them in pensions, work and security is the right thing to do and we will propose this. I think of a non-punitive reasoning. I too am good at making profits by firing and closing branches”.
Salvini had already given more precise figures regarding his proposal: a contribution for three years equal to 5% of the profits of the ten largest Italian banks, leaving out small local institutions. Taking 30 billion annual profits as a reference, 5% would correspond to approximately 1.5 billion per year. “If we ask, and as the League we will ask, a three-year contribution to the top ten Italian banks, on a profit of 30 billion, you will be satisfied with 5% a year”, he explained.
Retired three years before Fornero
The other front opened by Salvini is the social security one. “We want to leave the possibility of retiring three years earlier than expected compared to the Fornero Law, exceeding the 67 years of that law. We need money, of course”, he says.
At the moment, the ordinary old-age pension requires 67 years, while due to the adjustment to life expectancy the requirement will rise to 67 years and one month in 2027 and 67 years and three months in 2028, except for the categories excluded from the increase.
Flat tax, Salvini wants to raise the ceiling to 100 thousand euros
Salvini finally relaunches one of the League’s fiscal battlehorses: “Thanks to the League, 2 million Italians pay 15% in taxes, we want to raise the threshold from 85,000 euros to 100,000 euros as the turnover threshold for self-employed workers. And if Europe doesn’t allow it, we will ask the allies to do it anyway”.
The ordinary threshold of revenues and compensation remains today set at 85 thousand euros. Deputy Minister of Economy Maurizio Leo had already warned in June that raising the flat rate to 100 thousand euros would be “difficult”, because above 85 thousand the benefit could possibly be built on direct taxes, but not automatically maintaining the current VAT exemption. The preparation for the next budget law has already begun.
Six EU countries are asking for a tax on extra profits from oil companies: there is Italy
Meanwhile, six EU countries – including Italy – are calling for an EU-wide extra profits tax on oil companies, whose profits are skyrocketing due to the war in the Middle East, according to a letter seen on Saturday byAfp. The Finance Ministers of Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland and Portugal, together with the Spanish Economy Minister, would have sent the joint letter to the Finance Minister of Ireland, a country which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU.
The initiative was reportedly launched by German finance chief Lars Klingbeil, and ministers have urged that the issue of a tax be placed on the agenda of a meeting of the bloc’s finance ministers in Dublin next month.