Manoeuvre 2025, the decisive week opens: all the novelties in 10 points

The reorganisation of tax expenditures makes course on deductions. With a double guideline to follow: the ceiling will be mobile according to income and household members. For this, the technicians are developing a family quotient following the track of the one that was already adopted in November 2022 to ring-fence the scope of the superbonus.

The cut in charges will also include medical expenses and interest on first home loans, but without retroactivity: the squeeze will only affect new loans granted from 2025. Behind the mechanism is the intention to reward larger families with lower incomes, so households with more dependent children and lower incomes declared to the tax authorities will be able to count on a higher ceiling of deductible charges to reduce the taxes due or to obtain refunds in the 730 tax return.

The squeeze on bonuses spares deductions. Social security and welfare contributions, contributions for domestic helpers and caregivers, spouse's allowances, and supplementary pensions avoid the cut-off thresholds linked to income (8% up to €50,000, 6% from €50,000 to €100,000, 4% over €100,000) and to the composition of the household, and can continue to be deducted (thus reducing the taxable income that is taxed) according to the current limits.

The new mechanism of deductions with an expenditure ceiling modulated in relation to the number of children envisaged in the manoeuvre, however, is being filed at the Mef and would not yet be fully defined. The ceiling, which will grow according to the number of children and will be modulated in three income brackets (up to 50,000 euro, between 50 and 100,000, and over 100,000 euro), should not translate into a flat percentage: in any case, the thresholds being studied could be higher than the amounts equivalent to the percentages of the rumours circulated so far (8%, 6% and 4%). The aim is to achieve a combined effect of the new system of deductions and that of the Irpef rates.

The manoeuvre confirms and strengthens the measures on parental leave. It also introduces a 'Carta per i nuovi nati' (newborn children's card), which grants one thousand euros to parents under the Isee threshold of 40,000 euros to meet the numerous first expenses for each newborn child. The manoeuvre also reinforces the bonus to support the attendance of kindergartens, also providing for the exclusion of the sums related to the universal single allowance from the Isee calculation. Among the social measures, the 'Dedicated to you' card is refinanced for 2025 to the extent of 500 million. In making deductions, the number of dependent family members will be taken into account. The greater the number of family members, the greater the scope for tax deductions.

Healthcare is trying to revise its priorities or at least postpone the most important measures until 2026, when the bulk of the fresh resources made available by the manoeuvre (more than 3 billion) will be available.

Among them is the long-awaited plan for the recruitment of around 30 thousand doctors and nurses, which now risks being scaled down: next year there will in fact be about 1.2 billion available for measures on health personnel (these are the resources added for 2025 by the manoeuvre) and from here funds will have to be found to finance both the first tranche of the plan, which at this point will not exceed 5-6 thousand recruitments, but also the tax relief of part of the pay packet of health workers and incentives for young doctors to choose those specialisations that today see so many places go deserted.

In the manoeuvre, the first glimpses of the 'home plan' under discussion between Confindustria and the government are appearing. The instrument identified are fringe benefits, with increased amounts - one is reasoning up to 3-4 thousand euro - for new employees who agree to transfer their residence by more than 100 kilometres. It had been the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini, who had put forward the proposal to the government in response to the many companies that, unable to find labour locally, have to expand their search in other areas, clashing with the workers' difficulty in facing the expense of house rent. For the rest, the tax exemption threshold for fringe benefits that had been raised in 2024 for all employees to EUR 1,000 instead of EUR 258.23 is confirmed for 2025. The ceiling is set at EUR 2,000 for employees with tax dependent children.

The draft version of the manoeuvre's pension package, pending the final text, includes the confirmation of Quota 103 in a contributory version, Ape sociale and the 'selective' women's option.

The so-called Maroni bonus is then strengthened, with a form of de-taxation, to encourage workers who have reached the requirements for retirement to stay at work. These incentives will also concern public employment where, in agreement with the administrations to which they belong, public employees will be able to remain at work, on a voluntary basis, one or two years beyond the retirement limit. A mini-plan to strengthen supplementary pensions is also envisaged, starting with a new phase of 'silent consent' to allocate severance pay to pension funds. Possible interventions also on deductibility and on the 'mix' of compulsory and complementary pensions. There will be no new cuts in the revaluation of cheques. Instead, there will be a mini-reduction of the 'minimums'.

The renovation bonus is changing. From next year it will be confirmed at the current level, 50 per cent, only on main homes, with the expenditure ceiling at 96,000 euro. For the basic tax rebate for work on the home it is a momentous change, because from 2025 the tax relief for all second homes, which until now have been equal to first homes, will fall.

For these properties, deductions will be at 36%, with the expenditure ceiling at EUR 48,000. The full extension would have cost almost a billion a year, with this solution it will be possible to save about a third: the cost will be around EUR 600 million. Many of the most frequent interventions today fall within the scope of this bonus: just to name a few, the renovation of bathrooms, the creation of a new electrical system, the demolition and construction of interior walls. From 2025, they will be subsidised differently depending on the type of property.

Taxi receipts. Travel expenses. Other representation costs. The Pos or transfer rule will also extend to all other expenses that can also be used as deductions by companies and professionals. An almost obligatory step to continue along the path of contrasting interests on which many of the tax breaks have been introduced or maintained in recent years. But it is not the only anti-contrast move that the next manoeuvre is preparing to enact.

Because on the menu of interventions that should lead to an increase in tax compliance there are also the connection of the POS to the cash register in order to achieve an effective alignment between what is collected and the data transmitted to the financial administration. Added to this are two other 'blows' in favour of traceability: the bill accompanying goods at customs will become electronic only and the full interoperability of databases between the Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency.

The Digital Service Tax with an Italian number plate expands its scope. The Budget Law approved in the Council of Ministers envisages the application of the 3% tax without any revenue limit, thus to all companies that use the web for digital advertising on websites and social networks and access to digital platforms.

Taxation will also deal with the fees received by the operators of these platforms and the transmission of data obtained from users. Announcing the abolition of the two revenue thresholds that until now have limited the levy, excluding the smallest companies, was Economy Deputy Minister Maurizio Leo. Among the novelties to come, the deputy minister has in fact indicated the elimination of the current 'revenue ceilings of 750 million euro realised in the world and the part produced in Italy relative to 5.5 million', thus cancelling both thresholds.

The manoeuvre for 2025 also broadens the scope and looks at the digital tax. Cryptocurrencies and the web tax are still in the crosshairs. For bitcoins it is a sting, at least according to the statements of the deputy minister, who emphasised that in the tax package of interventions there is 'an important issue, which concerns capital gains from bitcoins' for which 'we foresee an increase in the withholding tax from 26% to 42%'.

In this way, the government seems intent on raising a barrier to the spread of the new digital coinage by using tax leverage to disincentivise the use of bitcoin for capital gains. As of 1 January 2025, when the manoeuvre comes into force, the levy on the realised gain will in fact be increased by 16 percentage points compared to the taxation currently applied to financial annuities.