Tesoretto is a term that generally does not please those who have to manage a country's accounts. But over time it has become established because it has its own narrative power. The story it tells, typically, is that of extra, unexpected money that at some point appears in the State Budget. Money that the economics ministers of the time try to keep away from political appetites in order to allocate it to public savings and debt reduction, as a good family man would do. But there are tesoretti and tesoretti. First of all, the most suitable term to indicate them would be extra-revenue, an unexpected tax income not quantified. There are different types. Those that arise, for example, from a more efficient tax machine. But there are also those produced automatically, which inflate revenues when prices rise. This is the case, for example, of excise duties on fuels, which increase public revenue when oil becomes more expensive, but also of VAT, which grows with inflation, especially on everyday consumer goods. These are generally extra money paid by motorists and consumers that the State should return. The mechanism of floating excise duties serves precisely this purpose: to give back that extra collected when the price of oil rises suddenly, dragging the price of petrol at the pump and with it the excise and VAT collected by the State.
THE PASSAGE
The second channel of revenue increase is decidedly more interesting from a political perspective: the fight against tax evasion. A fitting example is the cross-referencing between POS and receipts, one of those zero-cost reforms based on digitalization that are silently changing in depth the relationships between the Public Administration, starting with the Tax Authority, and citizens. The cross-referencing between POS and receipts does not produce "new" revenue in the strict sense of the term, but brings out taxable bases that previously remained hidden. The message changes: it is not the taxpayer who pays more due to price increases, but it is the Tax Authority that, being able to know all transactions and related receipts, makes it clear to those who must pay taxes that it will be difficult to hide. A simple thing to understand. And in Italy, shopkeepers, for example, have understood it well. In the first six months of this year (the measure has been fully operational since March), 9.1 billion euros more in receipts have been issued. How much all this has yielded in terms of higher revenue for the State is still a matter of analysis.
THE BULLETIN
It can be noted that, according to the latest revenue bulletin just published, VAT receipts up to May have increased by over 2.2 billion euros. We will see how many of these were obtained from the cross-referencing of POS and receipts. The point is not only how much the State collects, but where that money comes from. Extra revenue generated by inflation or energy price hikes says a lot about the system's fragility; one fueled by traceability of payments, on the other hand, says something more promising – that of a country trying to reduce the gray area of the shadow economy. A country that comes to terms with its weaknesses. This is no small feat and it is not even a given, given the difficulties other states face in undertaking such reforms. But the real challenge is not to celebrate the extra revenue. It is also, and perhaps above all, to give concrete signals to citizens. A reward, or perhaps better said, a "dividend" from the fight against tax evasion. A rapid and effective structural mechanism to return almost in real time all the extra revenue that forms in the public budget thanks to greater tax compliance by citizens. This is where the difference lies between a tesoretto to be spent and a dividend to be shared. Because a modern tax system does not limit itself to collecting better: it also knows how to give back better. This is where the real game is played in a country that has been seeking a transparent relationship between taxes paid and services received for years.
