Ernesto Maria Ruffini leaves the Agenzia delle Entrate: his contribution to the digital transformation of the Italian tax system
Ernesto Maria Ruffini's decision to leave the leadership of the Agency brings to an end a period in which the head of the financial administration has sought to profoundly innovate our tax system, with the introduction of electronic invoicing and digital tools. In recent days some newspapers had picked up rumours of his possible involvement in politics
2' min read
2' min read
The choice of the director of the Agenzia delle Entrate, Ernesto Maria Ruffini, to leave the helm of the agency brings to an end a period, spanning two terms of office, in which the top management of the financial administration has sought to deeply renew our tax system. Suffice it to think of the electronic invoice and the spread of digital tools at all levels, starting, for example, with the strengthening of the pre-filled declaration, in addition to all the modes of direct communication with taxpayers.
Innovative launch
.An innovative impetus that also brought results in the fight against tax evasion that led to a reduction in the tax gap. Beyond the symbolic struggles over numbers and the persistence of a high level of tax infidelity, in fact, recoveries have grown steadily over the years of the Ruffini administration.
Added to this was an attempt to renovate the organisational machinery of the Agency, with the introduction of a model that sought to achieve greater efficiency, over and above some internal resistance and the perennial difficulty of the centre in getting its impulses across to the peripheral offices, which sometimes failed to free themselves from more invasive modes of intervention.
Worn relationship with politics
In recent times the relationship with politics had seemed worn out. The Agency, for example, has certainly given a significant impetus to the path of tax reform, just think of the work on the Single Texts, but it has certainly paid the price for a turnaround by the Government which, paradoxically, has called for more in the fight against evasion but has sent mixed messages on this front. Suffice it to think of the affair of the two-year Preventive Arrangement, which started out with a philosophy that was geared to the creation of a new relationship between the tax authorities and the taxpayer, but over time has partly changed its characteristics. With one last step: that of the letters sent to VAT numbers with incomes below 15 thousand euro. A passage that has brought the Agency under the fire of political controversy for having been the sender of the communications.
