The new Aci tables

Fringe benefits, lower mileage reimbursements for diesel and petrol cars

Fuels and price lists reduce the amounts for 2025 compared to 2024. New tax rules favour electric cars

by Stefano Sirocchi

2 January 2025

Automobili in una foto di archivio. ANSA

3' min read

Key points

Fuels, price lists and depreciation
The new tax rules
Home Charges

3' min read

In 2025 the cost per kilometre for petrol and diesel-powered vehicles will fall, while the cost per kilometre for plug-in and electric vehicles will rise. This is the scenario that emerges from analysing the Aci tables, published in the Official Gazette of 30 December 2024, which were drawn up by the body with the aim of calculating the value of the fringe benefit relating to vehicles assigned by the employer to employees in mixed use.

Fuels, Price Lists and Depreciation

With regard to plug-in and electric vehicles, costs increased respectively by 0.9% and 2.4% for discontinued models and by 0.20% and 0.30% for those still in production. The levers influencing the changes were price increases in electricity for recharging, while fuels generally decreased (in the case of plug-in vehicles), as did general list prices.

ELETTRICHE PIÙ CARE

In contrast, the cost per kilometre of petrol and diesel-powered passenger cars, including hybrid versions (mild and full), recorded reductions of up to 2% for discontinued diesels. The drop in fuel prices and the reduction in the interest rate used to calculate depreciation allowances had an impact here. However, for production models, this effect was mitigated by slight increases in list prices during 2024 (until mid-November, the observation period). On an overall level, however, the differences between listed and non-listed cars are one or two decimal points.

The new tax rules

In general, the changes are small and smaller than in 2024 on 2023. On the other hand, what will lead to a significant increase in the value of the fringe benefit in the pay packet and in the related tax and social security deductions is the application of the new regulations in force from 1 January of this year for vehicles with Co2 emissions from 61 to 160 g/km registered and assigned for mixed use from that date. In these cases, the increase in tax and social security charges borne by the employee may result in a reduction of the net amount in the pay packet of more than 100 euros per month.

Basically, the value of the fringe benefit for newly registered cars, motorbikes and mopeds, granted in mixed use with contracts entered into on or after 1 January 2025, is equal to 50% of the amount corresponding to a conventional mileage of 15,000 kilometres, calculated on the basis of the cost per kilometre of operation inferable from the ACI tables. This percentage is set at 10% for purely electrically driven battery vehicles and 20% for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The previous regulations concerning the same vehicles, granted for mixed use with contracts stipulated from 1 July 2020 until 2024, instead correlated the percentages to be used for the calculation to the CO2 emissions. Thus the classes 0-60, 61-160, 161-190 and 191 g/km of Co2 corresponded to the coefficients 25%, 30%, 50% and 60%. With the consequence that for vehicles in the most common band, i.e. those with athermal engine in the 61-160 emission band, the coefficient is increased from 30% to 50% as of 1 January, i.e. an increase of 66.67% in the value of the fringe benefit, at the same cost per kilometre.

The 0.3 per cent increase in the cost per kilometre of electric cars (in production) is very little compared to the great advantage that new cars granted in 2025 will gain from the new regulations. Compared to the previous regulations, for new vehicles granted in mixed use as of 1 July 2024, the reduction in the value of the benefit in these cases is 60 per cent.

Home Charges

The only negative note, in this respect, would remain the treatment of the reimbursement of domestic electric recharges, which according to the tax authorities are taxable for the employee. In its answer to interpello 421/2023, the tax authorities maintain that 'the consumption of energy ... does not fall within the goods and services provided by the employer (so-called fringe benefit), but constitutes a reimbursement of expenses incurred by the employee', configuring it as employee income to be taxed.

However, as explained by Marco Cilione of ACI's Statistics Area in drawing up the tables, 'the cost of electric recharging is calculated by considering a weighted average: 70% is based on the prices of energy for domestic use, while the remaining 30% takes into account the tariffs charged at public columns'.

Considering that the cost of thedomestic electricity used to recharge the vehicle granted in mixed use is included in the cost per kilometre of operation and therefore in the value of the fringe benefit, it is legitimate to wonder whether the position of the tax office can be revised.