The “Save Italy” maneuver came as a sudden bolt in a blue sky for the agricultural world. What room is there to simplify the workload?
The Imu impact was very heavy. I managed to obtain a differentiation between the simple land owner and the owner-conductor in order to protect those who make enterprise. But I realize that it is an incomplete answer.
Why was not it possible to obtain more?
Because at the Ministry of Economy there was a wrong interpretation of the internal issues of the agricultural tax system. The sector has been given a richness that does not correspond to the reality. For more than 30 years now I have been speaking with the farmers in their houses and I do not see all this richness: what I see is a world that always has great problems in staying in the market. If we would compute the work cost, the profitability, already at the lowest levels of Europe, would be even lower. The difference between costs and prices make many entrepreneurs close their activities: the farmers cannot pay more. Also the welfare charges are excessive, and need a different approach: we must sustain the enterpriser able to create employment. The avalanche of tax collection folders and the mass of closing companies confirm the crisis.
But someone says that it is not finished…
I would like to return to the Imu: I will work to modify it. I will do my best. We cannot tax the cattle shed in Alps as well. Agricolture cannot sustain a further tax blow. If there is richness, we are speaking about a small minority. This becomes clear if you observe the data on the flow of Eu aid funds.
However, Istat shows a sector with 130% of the submerged GDO.
This seems to be a false picture, maybe it concerns small local realities, not visible fiscally. However I wish to underline that the blow is counterbalanced by some innovative measures contained in the liberalization and simplifying decrees. In some cases there are very innovatiove measures. Think about the obligation of written contracts for the selling agricultural products, but also about the fix term for reduced and certain payments (30 days for perishable food).
And for the first time, serious sanctions are foreseen for those who do not respect the rules. Without forgetting the stop of the incentives of the photovoltaic in the agricultural lands, that made rental prices sky rocket without producing any benefit for the farmers, and the restriction to guarantee the maximum transparency to the state lands dismissing. A measure that will be done only once but will be done on an annual base. In the end we found the necessary resources to favour the food supply chain contracts, an essential tool to guarantee an income for producers. Other benefits will come from simplifying the relations between enterprise and public administration, with the possibility for the Agea to ‘speak’ with the Inps, Inland revenue and Chamber of commerce.