Ruffini leaves the Revenue Agency: I do not take the field but speaking out is a right
"It had never occurred to me to see public officials being fingered as extortionists of a state lace".
3' min read
Key points
3' min read
Ernesto Maria Ruffini is leaving the post of director of the Agenzia delle Entrate. "I do not take the field," he said in an interview with the Corriere della sera, commenting on the hypothesis of a role as 'federator' of the centrist area of the opposition, "but I claim the right to speak. I read that talking about the common good would be a choice of field. And that therefore I should either keep silent or leave office. There was even a caricatured description of the role of Director of the Agency, as if fighting evasion was a partisan choice and even something to be ashamed of'.
'I do not share,' says Ruffini, 55, director of the Inland Revenue since January 2020, 'the chatter that mistakes politics for a parlour game, ideas for labels and civic sense for a power grab'. He resigned, he explains, 'because it is the only way to remain myself. Me a federator? I struggle to think that individuals are enough to change things. By nature I tend to believe more in the strength of people working together for a common project. Relying on self-styled saviours of the Fatherland is not good business'.
"State lace? Unheard of"
"It had never happened to me to see public officials being pointed at as extortionists of state lace. Or to hear that the Agenzia delle Entrate holds families hostage, as if it were a kidnapper," says Ruffini, who had already been director of the Agenzia delle Entrate from July 2017 to September 2018 after having been CEO of Equitalia from June 2015. "I have kept silent up to now, out of a sense of the State," he adds. "However, if the tax authorities themselves are demonised, it strikes at the heart of the State. I have always thought that it is the tax evaders who harm honest citizens'.
The resignation announced to Giorgetti
."On Wednesday, I saw Minister Giorgetti to warn him of my intention to return to office," he said.
