Manoeuvre, OK for reduced IRES for companies that reinvest. Skip the increase in motorway tolls in 2025. Green light for household appliance bonus, 400 million for car fund

The equalisation of the remuneration of non-parliamentary ministers and undersecretaries with that of their elected colleagues has been scrapped. A reworded amendment to the Budget Law by the rapporteurs rewrites the rule, providing for non-parliamentary government members not resident in Rome only the 'right to reimbursement of travel expenses for the performance of their duties'.

This is one of the novelties resulting from the marathon night in the House Budget Committee, which, in the intentions of the majority, aims to conclude its work by today, Tuesday 17 December, with the green light for the mandate to the rapporteurs. The House is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, 18 December and vote on Friday. With the risk, however, that the Senate's final yes will be postponed until after Christmas. Work has been suspended and will resume around 3 p.m., after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's speech in the Chamber for communications in view of the European Council. The arrival in committee of Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti has not been ruled out: "I have given my availability, if they call me I will go," he replied to reporters in the Transatlantic.

The stop to the rule on the salaries of ministers and undersecretaries not elected in parliament was a foregone conclusion after Guido Crosetto's intervention: "We have asked the rapporteurs to withdraw" the amendment to the manoeuvre on ministers' salaries "and avoid unnecessary controversy," announced the Defence Minister on Monday evening, 16 December on X. He wrote: "It is absurd to leave even one second more of space for controversy on the amendment that equated all ministers and non-parliamentary undersecretaries with MPs, recognising expense reimbursements. It has been like this for over two years and will continue like this until the end of the parliamentary term. Is this right? I don't think so because it makes no particular sense that the Minister of the Interior or Defence should be treated differently from one of their undersecretaries, but it has never mattered so far, neither to me nor to my colleagues. That is why we asked the rapporteurs to withdraw it and avoid unnecessary controversy. What would not be understandable for any other profession, and that is that two people doing the same job, in the same organisation, should be treated differently, must be taken into account for those in politics'. In recent days, the Defence Minister himself had proposed that the amendment be approved now, but that it be enforced by the next government.

OK to reduce the IRES by 4 points for companies that set aside at least 80 per cent of their profits for the financial year 2024, and reinvest at least 30 per cent of these in the company, and in any case not less than 24 per cent of the profits for the financial year 2023. This is stipulated in a reworded amendment approved by the Budget Committee. The investments must not be less than EUR 20,000 and the companies will have to hire 1 per cent more workers on a permanent basis.

The 1.8 per cent increase in motorway tariffs for 2025, corresponding to the inflation index planned in the Budget Structure Plan 2025-2029 envisaged in an amendment by the rapporteurs to the manoeuvre, is dropped. The government gave an opinion calling for the withdrawal of the rapporteurs' amendment on this issue.