Housing: with the cut in deductions, the risk of evasion increases for 10 billion small jobs
The 36% discounts for second homes depot the contrast of interests: installations of air conditioners, fixtures, boilers, and small maintenance work risk ending up in the black economy. For Cna we are heading towards a return to 2011 spending levels
by Giuseppe Latour and Giovanni Parente
4' min read
4' min read
Tax evasion is once again threatening the construction industry. The cut of the house bonus, decided at the beginning of the year with the last Budget law, together with the post-superbonus drop is having an already visible effect on investments facilitated with deductions. Part of these will inevitably end up in the black economy, especially for smaller jobs, such as replacing window frames, installing boilers or, in general, all small extraordinary maintenance.
The numbers of the contraction
.Data compiled by Cna's Fiscal Policies Department take a snapshot, starting from the trend of withholding taxes linked to talking transfers, of what happened to subsidised expenses for renovations in the first four months of 2025. Here we see an already very significant drop, from 11.5 billion in 2024 to around 9.6 billion in the same period this year. The reduction, amounting to 16%, spread over twelve months is theoretically worth a drop in jobs of at least ten billion. The contraction, however, could be even greater, since in the first months of the year there is still a depletion effect from the previous year's wave of investments. In these numbers there is certainly a reduction in the investments made, but a large part of these sums will go back into the black, due to the lower contrast of interests linked to the reduced subsidies.
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This is also reflected in the historical investment level of the building bonus market, also compiled by Cna. With the basic discount at 36% (as today) between 2011 and 2012 renovation expenditure was worth between 15 and 19 billion. They then rose to around 30 billion in the years in which the home bonus was increased to the between 50 and 65 per cent range. The growth in benefits has, in short, led to the emergence of 10-15 billion. Those same 10 billion that, according to this year's figures, we are losing along the way.
"The data," explains the head of tax policies at Cna, Claudio Carpentieri, "speak for themselves: in 2011 spending on building work was around 16.7 billion when the deduction for renovations was 36% and 55% on spending for energy requalification, starting from the second half of the year. The increase in deductions up to 110%, combined with the rebate on the invoice and the transfer of the credit, brought the expenditure to over EUR 100 billion. Now we are preparing to go back to the past: 'We believe that the reduction of deductions to 30% (and 36% for main homes) from 2026 will bring spending on building work back to levels close to those of 2011, dealing a serious blow to the construction sector, which in recent years has made a fundamental contribution to the creation of added value and employment in Italy.
Outside the macroeconomic scenarios, the small everyday evidences speak very clearly. A company that offers work without an invoice can save money by taking the risk of controls, VAT at least 10%, if not 22%, income tax (24% IRES or, roughly speaking, 35% IRPEF in the case of income between 28 and 50 thousand euro), 11% withholding tax and social security contributions for employees.
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