Vincenzo Visco: “Nonsense to reduce IRAP”

” The reduction of IRAP is nonsense ”. ” The tax was used to finance health care but if one begins to remove categories of income ” from the tax base ” it simply means that there is no longer a link between health expenditure and individual costs ”. This was stated by the former finance minister, Vincenzo Visco, in conversation with Adnkronos. ” ‘They will make a mess” because ” there is no money: to carry out a clean operation it takes at least 3 billion and here there is 1 ”. ” They are just abolishing bits and pieces ” of tax. ” They erase one piece at a time ”. ” They will take it away from some yes and the others not and the disparity between different types of income and work will worsen ”, underlines the president of Nens. ” It is a small operation and will aggravate the disparity between different types of income and work ”. ” The IRAP was a tax that had a very modern logic and this has never been understood but we will need it in the future ”, explains the former minister who was one of the ‘architects’ of the tax. “Now in many countries they are introducing taxes in bits and pieces that in the end, all together, resemble IRAP because everyone has the problem of taxing contributions and in particular health contributions”. The regional tax on productive activities ” taxed the net national income and was used to finance health care, it was proportional and therefore everyone paid a health contribution through the IRAP, after which if the regions exceeded spending they had to increase the tax. Now this disincentive has failed, it is failing. So it’s just nonsense ”, underlines Visco. Finally ” if I replace a large-based tax, to recover the revenue on individual taxes with a smaller base such as Ires, I have to increase the rates a lot, and this is wrong ”.