Banks and insurance companies, the contribution to the manoeuvre rises to 7 billion

The voluntary contribution to the public coffers by banks and insurance companies and envisaged by the manoeuvre has risen over the past few months and amounts to 6.5 billion. The prospect of advancing liquidity to the state was accepted by the sector on the assumption that it would be possible to recover the funds in later years. In essence, it is an interest-free loan. There are, however, controversial aspects in some passages of the regulation and they concern the insurance sector. One of the provisions introduced by the government is, in fact, not temporary, but permanent. And this has provoked the reaction of Ania, which at a hearing in parliament pointed out that the advance of funds would become a constant feature, moreover with the prospect that the current volumes to be paid, equal to 2.5 billion, could double to 5 billion in the coming years.

But let us go step by step. Let us start with the banks: the balance of their contribution went up last week by another 500 million to allow the government to finance the bonus IRES, i.e. the 4 percentage point reduction for companies that leave 80% of profits in the company, invest those funds and hire. The financing of this measure was found by reducing from 65 to 54 per cent the percentage of higher taxable income determined by the postponement of deductions that can be offset against prior losses and Ace surpluses. Now, however, that percentage had already been reduced a few weeks earlier from 80% to 65%, with a revenue for the State of around 700 million, as part of the voluntary contribution measures. This percentage cut is only in force for 2025 and is worth a total of 1.2 billion, which the banks will be able to recover as early as 2026. The same does not apply, however, to Dta. The manoeuvre intervenes on three items that make up these deductions: loan write-downs, goodwill and losses due to the adoption of accounting standard Ifrs9. These deductions staggered over time had percentage quotas for 2025 and 2026 that are suspended (in whole or in part): this will bring 1.8 billion in 2025 and 1.5 billion in 2026 into the State's coffers. The banks will be able to recover these sums from 2027 and for the following three years. In all, the contribution of the banking world, including the lower loss compensation, amounts to 4.5 billion.

According to the technical report of the manoeuvre, the contribution to be made by the insurance sector is 1.8 billion, but according to the industry, as mentioned above, the contribution is far greater. The sector is affected to a small extent by the measure on DTAs and to a much greater extent by the revision of the way in which the stamp duty, amounting to 2 per mille of the premium value, on third and fifth class insurance policies must be paid. Today, the tax is calculated annually, but is only paid by the customer at the end of the contract or at the settlement of the investment. The regulation introduces the annual payment, which must inevitably be paid in advance by the companies. This choice has an effect on policies initiated in past years: for the past, as mentioned, the technical report hypothesises a collection of 1.8 billion over four years.

At the hearing, Ania presented a different picture. "Paragraph 2 intervenes on the amount of the stamp duty accrued until 31 December 2024 relative to the periodic communications referring to insurance contracts in existence on the same date. For this amount, a payment mechanism is envisaged - again at the expense of insurance companies and similar to that of paragraph 1 - as follows: 50% in 2025; 20% in 2026; 20% in 2027; 10% in 2028. In the technical report, the amount of the accrued vignette is estimated to be 1,883 million and, therefore, the impact on the public accounts of 2025 estimated at 970 million would derive largely from the effect of the forecasts of Paragraph 2. Our estimates of the impact are higher: in particular, the value of this stock at the end of 2024 would be in the order of EUR 2,500 million'.

So here there would be an initial inconsistency that is not known to have been corrected in the forecasts of the manoeuvre. Then there is the paragraph that makes the method of paying the stamp duty permanent also for future policies. "The measure envisaged in paragraph 1 is permanent in nature because, unless the companies stop offering these products, they will always have a non-interest-bearing credit with the insured, which with the current figures is equal to 2.5 billion," Ania had explained. If the business were then to grow by 10% per year, as has been the case over the past ten years, the policyholders' debt and (our corresponding credit) would reach more than EUR 5 billion in 2034 and would remain so, assuming the same amount of new production, until the insurance companies' marketing of these products was closed". This would therefore be an abnormal claim on customers. The companies had demanded that they be allowed to pass on the annual stamp duty to customers by deducting it from the reserves. Some amendments had been tabled, but they had introduced excessive complexity. As a result, the original text remained in the manoeuvre. Someone will at least have to investigate whether the revenue that will arrive, which seems to be higher than estimated, is congruent with the revenue forecast.