An expanded ‘Christmas bonus’ to give a boost to consumption. The one-off 100 euros, together with the thirteenth payments, will go to a much wider audience than that imagined this summer with the omnibus decree. With a budget of around 100 million it was planned to reach one million families of employed workers with ISEE of up to 28 thousand euros and dependent children. In the opposition it was renamed ‘widowers’ bonus’, because the contribution was assigned to single-parent families only in the absence of a spouse, now the government has widened the limits, estimating it will reach 4.5 million workers, including singles with dependent children , initially excluded. “The requirement of having a dependent spouse is effectively eliminated and therefore to get the bonus it will be enough to have at least one dependent child”, explains the Deputy Minister of Economy Maurizio Leo, and it will – he claims – “a further boost for Christmas consumption , extra help to workers and taxpayers at a particular time of the year, when family expenses tend to increase”. After the unions, the government met with the social partners on the maneuver. At the table, chaired by Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano and not by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, there are 33 acronyms of employers’ organisations, from ABI to Confindustria and trade companies. The request is for a boost on investments, starting from the IRES bonus requested by industrialists. Meanwhile, given the high number of amendments presented by the groups to the maneuver, we are moving towards a skimming. The Chamber Budget Committee has established in the bureau to identify a maximum of 600 amendments to report, of which 250 for the majority (in practice one in 5 of the 1,200 filed), 320 for the oppositions (who in total presented 3,300 ) and 30 amendments for the Mixed group. A postponement of the deadlines for those ‘reported’ has also been established, which must arrive by Wednesday. The majority aims to arrive in the Chamber by mid-December: it will depend on the speed of the commission’s work but not only that. The government will have to deal with the outcome of the agreement, from which it hopes to obtain the resources to lower the second Irpef rate by two points, from 35 to 33%. An intention relaunched by the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti: “With the agreed resources, priority will be given to the Irpef cut” but, it will only happen after the payments: “we have not placed an extra euro in the budget”. And confirmed at the table with businesses, underlining the government’s desire to continue working to find resources to be allocated to significant reductions in the tax burden of the middle class. The confirmation of the installment of the second November advance on taxes and contributions, pushed by the League, could also be included in the maneuver, or in the related Tax Decree. For Giorgetti “within the limits of existing financial availability, it will be evaluated”. While the minister glossed over the confirmation of the cut in the Rai license fee from 90 to 70 euros: “Parliament is sovereign, Parliament decides”.
