Transition 4.0, 2.2 billion cap and software stop

On the one hand, the Ires bonus to incentivise investments (also) in technologically advanced capital goods. On the other hand, the filter to Transition 4.0, the measure that in recent years has been the reference for companies focusing precisely on this type of investment. We need this double reading to understand the novelties of the government's maxi-amendment to the budget law that is currently being examined by the Chamber of Deputies.

Two days ago, the government presented an amendment to the rules for access to the more generous incentives of Transition 5.0, the plan that represents the evolution of '4.0' by linking energy efficiency objectives to those of digitalisation. With the intervention that emerged yesterday, however, the Ministry of the Economy wants to avert the risk of budget overruns for access to the tax credits of the old '4.0' plan. Hence the decision to set a spending limit - EUR 2.2 billion - on the tax benefits that companies will be able to take advantage of for investments made from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025, with a possible tail-end to 30 June 2026 if a down payment of at least 20% of the acquisition cost has been made to the supplier of the machinery or plant by the end of 2025.

But this is not the only 'squeeze'. Because the maxi-amendment also provides for a halt to the 10% tax credit for the purchase of intangible assets, i.e. software, with 4.0 characteristics, for which another year of validity was envisaged from 31 December this year.

Returning instead to the anti-spill rule, the Mef has established that the company is required to telematically transmit to the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (Mimit) a communication on the amount of the expenses incurred and the related tax credit. In turn, Mimit will have to transmit to the Revenue Agency the list of beneficiary companies with the amount of the tax credit that can be used for compensation, according to the chronological order of receipt of the communications. The Mimit will communicate on its website when the spending limit is reached, 'also in order,' specifies the regulation prepared by the government for the amendment of the budget law, 'to suspend the sending of requests for the benefit of the facilitation.

A sub-amendment is on its way to correct the rule on the SME Guarantee Fund deposited by the government with an amendment to the manoeuvre two days ago. The Ministry of the Economy has provided for a sort of filter to prevent banks from making excessive use of the Fund. In essence, financial institutions that make significant use of the Fund will have to pay a premium to it. A mechanism that, according to the MEF, will limit the absorption of public resources by those banks that do business predominantly by relying on the Fund. However, the predetermination of the premium levels contained in the first version of the regulation could have turned into a boomerang with restrictive effects on credit. This consideration led Mimit undersecretary Massimo Bitonci, who drew up the rest of the rule extending the Fund for 2025, to agree with the MEF that a subsequent interministerial decree would establish the criteria and methods for implementing the provision.