Deduction of overtime and production bonuses: assumptions in the manoeuvre for the 2026 budget law
The idea would be to establish a kind of flat tax on the variable parts of wages: from holidays, to overtime, to production bonuses. In this way, these items would be subtracted from the overall taxation, resulting in an increase in the net amount
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Wages, contracts, tax, pensions. And Tfr, a new source from which to draw resources to heal all ills. Like any self-respecting August, the parties have already jumped on the manoeuvre merry-go-round. Every summer, a few days after the close of Parliament, ideas and proposals for the budget law to come overlap relentlessly in the political debate. This year it is fuelled by an additional element: the finalisation of the 2026 budget runs in parallel with the election campaign for the regional elections, with the majority ready to exploit every opportunity to secure political consensus.
With the door remaining firmly closed to any hypothesis of a legal minimum wage, a way to support wages is being studied at Palazzo Chigi. The idea would be to establish a sort of flat tax on the variable parts of wages: from holidays, to overtime, to production bonuses. Thus these items would be subtracted from the overall taxation and the net amount would be increased. An ad hoc rate with a ceiling would be applied, both yet to be defined.
Forza Italia looks at wages
.Forza Italia, which focuses on cutting the Irpef for the middle class, is pushing for such an intervention on wages. "The detaxation of overtime, production bonuses and holiday work is a workhorse of ours and a proposal of ours for a long time," claims economic manager Maurizio Casasco, who also recalls Forza Italia's proposal in Parliament on detaxation by law following contract renewals.
Pressing League on scrapping and early retirement
The League, on the other hand, is betting everything on the new scrapping, ensuring a freeze on the increase in the retirement age and claiming its ideas on how to bring forward retirement from work to 64. The methods used so far have been anything but decisive: according to Inps data, there were 36,983 flexible exits from work in 2024, halved compared to 69,315 in 2023. The drop is linked to the collapse of Quota 103, mainly due to the entirely contributory recalculation, and that of Opzione donna. For the undersecretary of Labour, Claudio Durigon, the solution could therefore lie elsewhere, in the treasury of the severance pay that, transferred to the INPS, could act as an annuity to ensure a decent cheque. But the opposition calls on the majority to 'get their hands off the Tfr' which, as Dem Arturo Scotto explains, 'belongs to the workers, not Durigon'.
Waiting for July revenues
To begin to take stock of what to include concretely in the next budget law, and in what form, we will have to wait a few more days, if not a few more weeks. The first public appointment of the Minister of the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, is scheduled no earlier than 7 September in Cernobbio. The first data from which to start will instead be the July revenues, which will arrive on five September. At the Mef they are waiting for the numbers to understand what the trend might be in the following months as well and to derive projections for next year. So far, the trend has been positive, but, in view of the forthcoming announced scrapping, non-dependent taxpayers could be induced to a wait-and-see attitude (as, moreover, also reported by the Court of Auditors).
