Social bonus extended to cover running costs
Property: benefits also apply to running costs
Social bonus: the Ministry of Labour has published the operational guidelines for accessing the scheme designed to facilitate the recovery of public assets through Third Sector organisations. This is therefore a further step towards facilitating organisations’ access to the tax benefits provided for under Article 81 of the Third Sector Code.
What does it involve?
The social bonus, in fact, provides a 65 per cent tax credit for individuals and 50 per cent for organisations and companies in respect of charitable donations intended for the restoration of unused public buildings or movable and immovable property confiscated from organised crime, assigned to third sector organisations for the exclusive and non-commercial pursuit of activities in the public interest in accordance with Article 5 of the Code.
Eligible expenses
One interesting aspect concerns the scope of eligible expenditure: Ministerial Decree 89/2022 extends the benefit well beyond the restoration of the property, going so far as to cover expenditure relating to the management of the property. Eligible costs include utility bills, service charges, cleaning services and taxes, even if these were not included in the financial plan or the originally approved budget. The condition set by the Ministry is that these must be expenses incurred after the submission of the completion certificate and the final account for the building works.
From that point onwards, the organisation may, via the platform and by means of a declaration from its legal representative, express its intention to continue benefiting from the grant by uploading the updated budget for the item ‘operation of the asset’, within the limits of the allocation period. The Ministry will verify the eligibility of the expenditure and publish a notice on the dedicated portal, whilst the organisation must submit quarterly reports and, at the end of the three-year period, the final report.
Key issues and next steps
Despite its obvious potential, the social bonus has not yet fully taken off in operational terms. From this perspective, it will be essential to promote its implementation and, above all, awareness amongst local authorities and social enterprises. Thirteen projects have been approved to date, with a total value exceeding 9.49 million, representing an average of around 730,000 euros per project. The organising bodies are quite diverse, a sign of the measure’s cross-cutting nature and flexibility. To date, the list includes three voluntary organisations (Odv), five social promotion associations (Aps), a philanthropic organisation, two other ETSs and four social enterprises. Ten projects concern unused public buildings, two involve property confiscated from organised crime and one involves confiscated movable property.
