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the Containment measures of the epidemic have had enormous costs for the country. This problem, along with several others, such as the constitutionality of the measures adopted or their effect on school dropouts, has been raised by many commentators but generally ignored or almost ignored by thepublic opinion and politics; on the contrary, those who spoke of it were often accused of wanting to deny or favor the epidemic and the consequent deaths.
Today, however, the point has become inescapable and many wonder what economic measures should be taken to repair the damage caused by the epidemic and the partial or total closure. Thus arises the hypothesis of one property tax: make the rich and the very rich pay the costs, a hypothesis also proposed in this newspaper. In principle, the hypothesis is plausible and if the fact will launch a petition to that effect, I will sign it. But it would be foolish not to wonder what the Scrooge’s estate tax can solve and hope for the impossible.
First, a hypothetical one-time wealth tax has a limited incomeWe are talking about 10 billion euros, enough to provide a monthly aid of 800 euros to one million families for a year. Better than nothing, but that’s not what solves the economic damage as a consequence of the epidemic and the closures, estimated at hundreds of billions.
Second, the real Scrooge, unlike Walt Disney’s, does not keep his assets in a coin deposit, from which they can be removed by truck. The wealth of billionaires is largely invested and taxing them means imposing at least a partial divestment on the owners. How are these assets invested? In real estate? In stocks? the disinvestment of a relatively large amount is not without adverse effects on the markets: it makes you lose more money and everyone knows that if you sell the shares their value decreases.
Third, property taxation of the very rich is dubious from a legal and cultural point of view: in fact it sets up an idea of the state in which “taxes are fine as long as someone else pays them” who doesn’t belong to our Constitution which instead says: “Everyone is obliged to contribute to public expenses by virtue of their ability to pay. The tax system is based on progression criteria. “(Article 53) Obviously, the Constituents had in mind a taxation based on income, including income from assets, but not asset erosion itself (and indeed Article 47 protects savings).
The previous considerations indicate very clearly that the best way out of the economic (and cultural) crisis in which the epidemic has brought us is the recovery of productive activities, associated with a review of direct tax rates (IRPF, IRPEG) based on highly progressive criteria, in compliance with constitutional provisions.
Evidently, a severe repression of thetax evasion, and an elimination of those fiscal benefits that too often our governments have granted to strong subjects (the last of them is the one granted to Philip Morris, also revealed by this newspaper).
In short, the patrimonial tax does not belong to the ideology of a democratic left, but to the left of the Masaniellis, of which our country has a long and failed historical tradition. The purpose of taxes is not the “punishment” of wealth, but the share costs of the state and of our social civilization: health, education, justice, etc. One must be very cautious when dividing citizens into groups on which qualitatively different obligations are imposed: it is no coincidence that the article that the Constitution dedicates to taxes begins with the word “all”.
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