“We intervened in a situation that was out of control. The super bonus continues to generate three billion credits a month”. It is Sunday morning when the premier Giorgia Meloni returns to the block of transfers in the social section “Notes of Giorgia”. “The total cost of the measure is 105 billion – she continues – and if we left it until the end of the year, we wouldn’t have the money to make the budget: we have to defend the public budget”. These words recall those spoken by Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgettiafter last Thursday’s Council of Ministers, which decided to stop sales and invoice discounts for construction sites started on Friday, 17 February.
Comparison with trade associations
Once the transfers have been blocked for the future, the Government has to face the problem of already existing and stranded credits. According to estimates Ance, it is bonuses for a value of 15 billion, which the construction companies are unable to sell (because the banks, now saturated, no longer buy them), or to compensate (because the companies do not have enough taxes to pay).
Today at 17.15, the trade associations are convened at Palazzo Chigi (Confindustria, Ance, Confedilizia, Confapi, Cna, Confartigianato and Alliance Cooperatives). According to the premier, the meeting’s goal is “to understand what else we can do to save these companies and to save these workers and put this measure back on a sensible track”.
The working hypotheses in the table
A first hypothesis to unravel the knot of stranded bonuses derives from a proposal by Ance and Abi: to allow banks to use the credits deriving from building bonuses not only to pay their taxes but also a part of those they pay by a delegation of their customers with model F24. It would be a more effective solution than transferring credits to account holders because it would involve all the F24s processed by the banking system. Furthermore, there shouldn’t be any hitches at the level of public finances if – as it seems – Eurostat imposes the accounting of all tax credits in the year of accrual: in practice, if all the bonuses arising in 2021 and 2022 are entirely allocated to those years, releasing the compensation will not worsen the accounts for 2023 (see Il Sole 24 Ore of 19 February). Among the other hypotheses circulated, there is also the securitization of stranded amounts.
Before the associations, the Government will also see Cdp, Sace and Abi. “I don’t know what is being hypothesized, but they are important subjects to involve,” commented yesterday the president of Ance, Federica Brancaccio. You also called for a measure capable of looking to the future, given that there will be a need for incentives for the building redevelopment imposed by the EU directive on homes green: A long-term, structural measure, with no changes in progress, which is sustainable for the State and favours the transition that everyone is asking for and using European funds. Even the president of Confedilizia, Giorgio Spaziani Testa, has taken a stand, saying he is against the total elimination of the sale.
