Sugar tax, agreement to postpone until July 2025
The Senate Finance Committee's approval of the one-year postponement of the tax, which will therefore not come into effect in July 2024. Instead, the plastic tax is postponed by two years, to July 2026. Forza Italia: our victory
by Marco Mobili
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Key points
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OK to postpone the sugar tax to July 2025. The one-year postponement was approved by the Senate Finance Committee with an amendment introduced in the Superbonus decree. The agreement reached in the majority on the postponement of the tax on sugary drinks had been announced by the Minister for Relations with Parliament Luca Ciriani, explaining that 'an agreement has been reached on this'. The comment of Forza Italia group leader in the Senate Maurizio Gasparri was immediate: 'It is our victory. In the amendment originally presented by the government on Friday night, the sugar tax should have been introduced, in a reduced measure, from July of this year. Instead, the plastic tax is postponed by two years, to July 2026.
Gifts: effort to find coverage
.As early as the afternoon of Tuesday 14 May0 signals had already arrived from the government of a willingness to find a synthesis position for the postponement of the entry into force. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti emphasised: 'We are making an effort in these hours to search, very laboriously, for financial coverage to postpone the entry into force' of the sugar tax. And, added Giorgetti, 'I believe that we will get there in the end, but I believe that this is not the central issue of economic policy in this country'.
Taxes introduced by the 2020 manoeuvre (but never in force)
The solution, therefore, meets the requests arrived at by Forza Italia, which has presented two sub-amendments to the corrective measure presented by the government: one on the postponement to 1 January 2025 and the other, instead, aimed at a longer postponement until 30 June 2026 (so as to 'realign' the starting date to that of the plastic tax). Palazzo Chigi recalls that both the sugar and the plastic tax were introduced with the Budget Law 2020 by the Conte 2 government, but until today it has been subject to continuous postponements. With the 2024 manoeuvre, the last extension is set for July 2024.
Government at work
.The government also aims to meet the demands of companies in the sector that had feared the impending risk of 5,000 jobs with the introduction of the tax.
