The economist Di Taranto: “Inheritance tax after 120 thousand deaths? Affects families who are victims of Covid”

The proposal for an inheritance tax put forward by the leader of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta and also re-launched by Leu does not find full consensus among the economists. “First of all, I would like to align myself with what Prime Minister Mario Draghi said that this is a moment in which ‘we must give and not take’ to the citizens” but then, “it comes to my attention – and I would not like to put any note of malice – that we proposes to tax the succession right after we have registered 120,000 deaths due to the pandemic “. This horizon is pointed out by the economist Giuseppe Di Taranto, full professor of Economic and Business History at the Luiss Guido Carli University. Speaking with Adnkronos, Di Taranto observes that “this aspect has not yet been emphasized by anyone and it seems to me, instead, to be highlighted because such a heavy tax hits precisely the families of the victims of Covid-19”. “The succession must be done within one year of the death of a person” and “therefore a similar inheritance tax, at this moment, would hit the families who have had victims due to Covid-19”. But it is not the only issue that perplexes the economist. An inheritance tax, he warns, “would affect the properties that are our guarantee on public debt”. “Real estate – he argues – is in fact the guarantee of our public debt because we are perhaps the first country in Europe to have about 77% of families who own real estate. And this represents a guarantee as our private wealth is movable than real estate, is more than double the amount of our public debt and this is a guarantee “. And also on this point Di Taranto refers to the words of Draghi “pronounced in 2018, that is, that the Italian debt is sustainable because there is the ability to repay it”. The economist therefore clarifies that “should the country ever go towards a default, then we should immediately focus on the choice of an asset that would protect us against a possible default of public debt”. “But let’s talk about proposals and extreme situations” he notes. With these arguments on the table, an inheritance tax in Di Taranto therefore appears to be “an electoral proposal and which in any case does not work”. “We want to give 10 thousand euros to young people for what?” he asks. “Much better – he underlines – to help young people with active employment policies by trying to match, apart from the quantity of supply and demand, also the quality of the supply and demand for work. That is, we need to start young people towards those professional skills that the market requires, new professional skills are needed that tend to satisfy the quality of the job demand “. And another aspect not to be neglected to give concrete support to young people “are family policies. We must look to the Family Act to make contributions when a child is born or to create nursery schools. And the Family Act is a tool, among other things. , connected to one of the major problems of our country: the birth rate “. (by Andreana d’Aquino)