I’ll explain the real Superbonus malus
The latest news on the Superbonus commented and analyzed by Giuseppe Liturri
The alarm we launched in June 2021 regarding tax credits for building bonuses has finally arrived on the pages of the Sole 24 Ore . There are still 15 billion credits that no one wants or can buy and 25,000 building companies are at risk. Since Wednesday , the new indications coming from Eurostat regarding the accounting of these interventions have made the risk concrete that the circulation of credits, through multiple assignments, as an accepted and discharging payment instrument on a voluntary basis, would force the State to immediately account as an expense publishes the full amount of work authorized and performed. For the 110% superbonus alone (data as at 31 December 2022) we are talking about 51 billion in deductions already accrued which rise to 69 billion, considering the deductions envisaged at the end of the works. Also considering the other bonuses (facade bonuses, earthquake bonuses, etc.) we rise to 110 billion, with an overall difference of almost 38 billion compared to forecasts.
The choice communicated by Eurostat should not surprise and is technically correct and well motivated. Since June 2021, we had pointed out that Eurostat provisionally considered the credits from building bonuses "unpayable" but reserved a definitive assessment. Now it has come to an unexceptionable conclusion: if a credit can be transferred or carried over over the years for the uncompensated portions and can be offset against any tax debt, then the probability is very high that the State actually bears that cost and that – symmetrically – the taxpayer benefits from that concession. In other words, the more credit circulates, the more likely it is that sooner or later it will find someone who has tax debts to compensate. It is therefore "payable". If, on the other hand, the credit can only be compensated with the taxes owed by the taxpayer for each year, there is a real risk that there are no tax debts to offset and that therefore the excess amount is definitively lost. Consequently, the State can account, as it has done, for annual installments of any such missed collections.
The problem is that, since its inception, the superbonus has been characterized by the transferability of tax credits and therefore a legitimate expectation has been generated in the taxpayer about the possibility of obtaining the relief for an amount even much higher than their tax debts . Therefore, in the event of a surplus or need for liquidity, the taxpayer could immediately obtain the benefit, through the assignment of the credit. In November 2021, Mario Draghi's government entered this mechanism with a straight leg, setting a limit on sales and leaving thousands of companies with the credit match in hand that had carried out works, discounting the subsidy to the customer directly on the invoice, but which they could no longer find banks willing to buy. The subsequent intervention by Giorgia Meloni's government – with the Aiuti-Quater decree and with the budget law – which brought the total transfers to five (of which three in a "protected environment", i.e. to banks) and granted the possibility of offsetting ten years, has only marginally improved the situation, which remains critical.
We understood that the situation was turning for the worse for businesses and taxpayers on 18 January by reading the written response from the Mef, through undersecretary Lucia Albano, to a parliamentary question. In that document, the conclusions of the new section of the Eurostat accounting manual were anticipated and it was underlined that the transferability of the bonus determined its "payability" with consequent "public finance impacts".
At this point, it is good to be clear, both for the future and for the past. Those who fear "dangers" for the accounts deriving from the possible immediate booking of 69 billion (3% of GDP) in public spending and therefore in debt/GDP – which in 2023 would increase from the planned 144.6% to approximately 147% – should reflect on the fact that so far the only (positive) public finance impact of building bonuses has been to guarantee at least 1/5 of the 2022 GDP growth (+3.9%). As demonstrated in numerous studies, published here , here and here . They should be reminded that already today the debt/GDP is 3 points higher only because we have contributed to the various Mes, Efsf and loans to other EMU states. So no one has torn their clothes?
The fact that the accounting rules would lead to an extraordinary debt-to-GDP spike in 2023 (but a lower burden in subsequent years) is a boring accounting dispute with zero impact on the real economy. Since what matters is that the works have been carried out and the credits have matured. The cash effect will be that determined by the annual scan of the compensations carried out by the credit holders, both original and assignee. Everything else is boring.
The alleged alarm of the markets for an indicator to which they are very sensitive is a false problem. Because the real problem for an investor who buys Btp would be to see thousands of companies go bankrupt and block again a sector that has just emerged from the darkness of the past decade. Certainly not to look at a small number, waving the threat of the spread. The government has a precious match point to relaunch the country and win the trust of taxpayers: let all tax credits circulate freely and think about growth, not accounting guesswork. Unless these are an alibi (similar to that of fraud) to cut the ex-post benefit. Then the match point would become an own goal.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/vi-spiego-il-vero-malus-del-superbonus/ on Sat, 04 Feb 2023 15:42:08 +0000.