The priority is to solve the tax issue

Let us return to the subject of the electric car for those who use it as part of a business activity and therefore have a VAT number, a topic that we have already addressed in the Fleet Report published on 1 April last but which, because of its importance, we feel it is appropriate to go into in greater depth. The European Union, in its action plan for the energy transition presented in Brussels on 5 March, announced that a proposal will arrive within the year that should allow a strong acceleration in the electrification of cars used in fleets. In the EU, the size of the fleet car fleet today accounts for 60% of that of the entire European car fleet, with the exception of Italy, where the share falls to 42%, due to fiscal harassment that has lasted for decades thanks to a 'temporary' derogation that suspends for us and only for us the application of EU rules on the full deductibility of VAT and the full deductibility of operating costs on the cars of economic subjects, with the consequence of heavily penalising them when they find themselves competing with EU competitors for whom using a car costs significantly less than in Italy, thanks to a more 'humane' tax system.

Having said that, the first issue is not so much to make Italian fleets greener, but to make them more similar to those in the rest of the Union in the first place. To do this, it is necessary to put an end, once and for all, to the harassment that consists in taxation that is much heavier than that of other European countries. In a nutshell, VAT must be made fully deductible and operating costs fully deductible. And in this regard, it must be said that the disadvantageous situation for economic operators in the use of cars is the fault of Italian governments, but it is also the fault of the EU, which for decades has granted, and continues to grant, absurd derogations that are highly penalising for our economy. Brussels' intention to encourage the electrification of fleets is now a good opportunity to once again open up the issue of the abnormal taxation of Italian company fleets, eliminating the derogations from European regulations that Italy has been asked to make and culpably granted by Europe.

Having done justice to this long-standing issue, there is nothing to prevent us from studying tax or other concessions (incentives, etc.) to ensure that Italian fleets become not only more 'equal' to European fleets, but also more 'green', at least as much as the fleets of the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries already are.