Imu increase on second homes: tightening of controls reveals ghost houses

Not only cadastral rents. The hunt for ghost houses and those that have not undergone revaluation after taking advantage of bonuses may also produce a long wave on the coffers of municipalities. In particular, the leverage effect of the upwardly revised rents may increase the revenue from the Imu tax on second homes. The operation announced by the Executive in view of the next manoeuvre is an attempt to rebalance the levy, shifting the axis on those who have so far declared and paid nothing or too little.

The control plan relies entirely on the mechanism of compliance letters. In practice, by cross-referencing the data in the Anagrafe tributaria with those from the new cartographic survey methods the tax authorities will have a map of possible misalignments both for completely unknown houses and for those in which owners have taken advantage of building bonuses and, finding themselves in the position of having to do so, have not then adjusted the value of the property at the land registry.

The cadastral rent, however, is not a value in itself. But it represents the amount from which the calculation of Imu begins. As the taxable amount increases, the tax due will naturally also increase in the case of second homes. In the typical situations analysed by 'Il Sole 24 Ore' one could arrive, for example, in Rome in a three-room A3 residential property at an increase in Imu of 331 euro: this is because the annuity starting from a base of around 503 euro could rise by almost 37% to 689 euro. The consequence of this is that Imu would double the cadastral class jump from 896 to 1,227 euro.

Similar phenomenon in Milan for a larger property (5 rooms) in category A2. Starting from an income of 1,032 euro, even here with the double jump in class there would be an increase of 37%, which translates into an increase in the annual Imu of 742 euro.