The flat rate tax rises to 26% but is only triggered for short-term rentals of multiple apartments. While baby diapers and car seats will be exempt from the reduced VAT rate of 5% and will be subject to the ordinary rate of 22%. These are the main innovations that arrive with the latest draft of the maneuver. A text increasingly closer to the definitive version, which rises to 109 articles, including the balances of the Ministries but still without the tables.
The work is “substantially closed”, assures Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, promising that the text will be sent to Parliament on Monday. In the meantime, the filing continues. And in the “fourth version” a substantial modification appears to one of the last political issues remaining on the table: the increase in the flat rate tax on short-term rentals from 21% to 26%, considered “unacceptable” by Forza Italia. In the latest draft an attempt is made to correct the situation: the rate will rise to 26% only if the short-term rental (for less than 30 days) concerns “more than one apartment”.
So save the small owners who, for example, rent out their beach house to supplement their income a little, but not those who make short-term rentals a real business (read Airbnb). And the other clarification also seems to go in this direction: «if more than one apartment is intended for short-term rental for each tax period or in the case in which the option» for the application of the flat rate tax is not exercised, « the withholding tax is considered to be made as an advance”. The change, however, is not considered definitive by the Azzurri, who postpone the verification until Monday, when the maneuver will be on the table of a majority summit. Confconstruction is also dissatisfied, asking for the withdrawal of the rule as an “act of common sense”.
But taxes will also increase on baby diapers and car seats. These two products, which currently benefit from the reduced VAT rate of 5%, will in fact return to being subjected to the ordinary rate of 22%. In fact, in the latest draft of the measure, two groups of goods subject to reduced VAT are abolished, including female sanitary pads and tampons, powdered milk and nappies and child seats: but while sanitary pads and powdered milk are moved to the list of goods at 10%, nappies and car seats remain effectively out of the categories with reduced VAT.
The changes to pensions and direct access to current accounts, modified following pressure from the League, have been confirmed in the latest draft. There is a return to 103, but with the contribution, the ceiling on the allowance and the extension of the exit windows (from 3 to 7 months for private employees and from 6 to 9 for public employees). The tightening of pensions for health workers, teachers and employees of local authorities has also been confirmed: the table of performance rates for social security management has been modified, with less significant levels of adjustment than expected so far. An intervention which, as the Anaao managers’ union denounced in recent days, risks resulting in a loss of up to 25% of doctors’ allowances.
And “which risks having repercussions also on the number of professionals working in the regional healthcare system”, warns the president of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani. The bonus for night work and overtime intended for the first six months of 2024 for tourism workers, including spas, is also extended to bartenders and waiters. While a crackdown on fair trade is coming, with the repeal from 2025 of the Fund intended to provide non-repayable contributions to companies supplying this category of products. Finally, a new article quantifies the interest expense on public debt securities resulting from the effects of the use of debt: starting from 215 million for 2024 and 568 million euros for 2025.