Redditometro only for total evaders. Ruffini: it is residual

'Residual' and the new decree is to protect honest citizens. Trying to quell the fire of the political controversy over the revival of the redditometer (after the publication of the decree that has been awaited for six years) is the director of the Inland Revenue, Ernesto Maria Ruffini. The synthetic reconstruction of income based on expenses and investments made will not be for everyone but only for a few. Indeed, it always has been.

According to a statement collected by Ansa on the sidelines of a conference he attended, Ruffini argued that 'the redditometer has always been a residual tool, used only when the financial administration has no element to reconstruct a taxpayer's income, as in the case of total evaders who have not submitted a declaration, have no income, but demonstrate a significant spending capacity'.

Strictly speaking, the synthetic and redditometric assessment is only permitted if the total ascertainable income exceeds the income stated by the taxpayer in his income declaration by at least one fifth (i.e. 20 per cent). Also in view of the aim of hunting down big tax evaders, the IRS will focus on the largest deviations between what is reconstructed on the basis of the list of expenses and investments and the values actually indicated in the declaration..

Ruffini explained that 'the assessment based on the redditometer has never been eliminated from our system, it had only been suspended pending the issuance of a ministerial decree based on more reliable indicators, to protect honest citizens'.

In 2018, the Dignity decree (Conte 1 government supported by M5S and Lega) had cancelled the old redditometer decree, revised and corrected by the Renzi government in 2015, leaving the synthetic assessment alive instead and, above all, providing for a new implementing measure with the precise indication of the items of expenditure (and the data considered) to define the real taxpaying capacity of citizens.