Manoeuvre, Giorgetti: Aid to the middle class. On hyper- and super-amortisation we will look for a solution to make them multiannual

The manoeuvre should be seen "as a whole" and the interventions are, not for the rich, but for the middle class. This is how Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister for the Economy, in a video interview at the Bergamo City of Enterprise Festival, responds to the criticism of those who have pointed out that the manoeuvre is basically for the rich. 'We need to understand whether rich people are those who earn 45,000 euro gross a year. We have intervened this year on the middle class, the most disadvantaged have been targeted in previous years. We put 18 billion last year and put it back this year for incomes below 35 thousand euro, this year we made a further effort and covered the bracket up to 50 thousand euro"

Giorgetti emphasised that this is 'absolutely sensible logic, I regret that this type of analysis is only focused on one year, forgetting that we have made the contribution wedge cuts introduced in previous years stable. They are confirmed this year'. Also to be seen, he added, is the other measure in the budget bill 'envisaged for incomes up to 28,000 euro, namely the tax incentives to encourage the renewal of labour contracts. The manoeuvre must be seen as a whole: a fiscal intervention on the one hand and an incentive for contract renewals on the other'.

As for the criticism, 'once we have tried' to help 'not the rich but those who earn reasonable sums we have been slaughtered by those who have the opportunity to slaughter. But there is no problem, because we think we are in the right. I think that a calm and objective analysis' of the manoeuvre as a whole 'can lead to quite different results', added the minister

"One of the interventions that I hope can be made" in the parliamentary passage of the manoeuvre "is that relating to hyper-amortisation and super-amortisation because these are the ones that somehow give an almost automatic impulse to renew, invest, improve," Giorgetti concluded. "Making them multi-year would be a good thing because they provide investors with a framework of certainty over time and thus also the possibility and ability to plan investments. We will certainly try to find a solution'.

It was Dem secretary Elly Schlein who stated on 8 November that the cut in the second Irpef rate (from 35 to 33 per cent) contained in the manoeuvre 'again helps the richest instead of the impoverished middle class'. And to declare that the Meloni government 'will be remembered as the one of the bloodletting for Italian families and businesses and for aiding the richest'.