The suspension of road tax decided by the government for 2027 will affect 45% of vehicles in circulation and 65% of owners, reaching 73% of families who own at least one car. The photograph was taken by the Parliamentary Budget Office (Pub), which highlights how the measure benefits above all medium-low incomes.
In the first deciles of spending, in fact, the exemption covers up to 45% of the total tax, compared to just 29% reserved for the richest segment of the population. Translated into practical terms: for low-income households, saving affects 1.1% of total spending, while for the last decile the impact stops at 0.2%.
How much is the exemption worth (compared to the increased cost of fuel)
Compared to an estimate of the impact of high fuel prices in 2026 equal to 1.2 percent of household expenditure, the exemption from stamp duty for 2027 would be worth 0.4 percent of household expenditure and, together with the reductions in excise duties introduced in 2026, would reach 0.6 percent, equal to half of last year’s increases.
The impacts, notes UPB, are differentiated: for families with lower spending capacity, the resources potentially recognized would be almost equivalent to the higher cost of fuel incurred for 2026. The benefit of the exemption, however, does not depend on the actual use of the car: for families who travel a few kilometres, the benefit could exceed the higher cost of fuel, while for those who use the vehicle more it would only offset part of it.
Making the measure structural would require modifications
The PBO then notes that the stabilization of the car tax exemption “would require structural coverage together with an evaluation of the tax structure and interventions on mobility”.
“The question arises of the future of a tax whose objectives today appear poorly defined, given that it follows neither the use nor the value of vehicles and only weakly emissions” explains the Parliamentary Budget Office.
“Reproposing the exemption in its current form would present some critical issues”, including “the discontinuity introduced by the 80 kW threshold (which would also introduce a discontinuity in the tax treatment of vehicles, with possible effects on the used market and on the choices of producers), the need to identify structural coverage and the effects on the financial autonomy of the Regions, which would see the revenue from the tax replaced with a state transfer”.
In short, if the measure were made structural it would need to be rethought, also to avoid penalizing too much those who have a car with just over 80 kW.
The effects on the budget of the Regions
The exemption from stamp duty, the PBO points out, “raises questions about the financial autonomy of the Regions. A few weeks after the reform which strengthened the autonomy of this tax, the lost revenue is transferred to the State budget, making the increases decided by the individual Regions fall on all taxpayers. If it were to become permanent, the measure would risk weakening the fiscal responsibility of the Regions and crystallizing their current fiscal effort at the expense of the State budget. Furthermore, the criteria remain uncertain of distribution of state compensation, which could cancel the effects of the August reform even before its application”.