The Government and the big banks are close to reaching an agreement on the contribution that the latter should provide to the state budget as part of the financial maneuver. A further increase in IRAP seems to have been averted, thanks above all to the pressure of Forza Italia. The tax should increase by 2% and not 2.5% as assumed by some amendments.
On the other hand, banks should contribute not through a tax, but with a liquidity advance mechanism similar to that already implemented in last year’s budget.
No IRAP of 2.5% for the banks, the agreement with the Government
The summit on Friday 28 November at Palazzo Chigi between the majority leaders would have made it possible to move closer to an agreement with the banks for the contribution to the state budget that the Government will demand from the credit institutions. Some amendments to the Budget had envisaged a 2.5% increase in IRAP, but this option appears to have been discarded.
It would have been Forza Italia that pushed to avoid a further increase in the tax, which the original text of the maneuver already envisages raising to 2%. Forza Italia group leader in the Senate, Maurizio Gasparri, explained:
We should reach an agreement that should keep the IRAP increase at two points and not 2.5% and we will then continue along the path of agreements to identify other solutions linked to cash flows.
The regional tax on productive activities for banks should therefore go from 4.65%, a figure already increased compared to what other companies pay, to 6.65% and not 7.15%.
How the liquidity advance works
As mentioned by Gasparri, instead of a further increase in IRAP, banks will be asked to contribute to the state budget in another way other than another increase in IRAP. According to the news agency Handlethe solution found would be a liquidity advance. The Government has already adopted it in the Budgets for 2025 and 2024; allows the treasury to obtain funds from the banking system without imposing new taxes.
The mechanism is based on deferred tax assets (Dta), benefits that banks put in their balance sheets because they are sure that, in the future, they will have to pay less taxes on a specific item. The liquidity advance, in effect, asks banks not to use these benefits next year and to keep them for the future.
In this way, banks would pay more taxes than expected in 2026, but the tax credits from which the DTAs derive would remain on the balance sheet. For credit institutions there would therefore be no further burden, but only a postponement of a positive item from 2026 to subsequent years. However, this would be the third consecutive postponement.
All taxes on banks in the Maneuver
With this latest addition, therefore, the so-called contribution of the banks to the Budget would be made up of three different rules:
- an increase in IRAP of 2%, from 4.65% to 6.65%;
- the advance liquidity on DTAs;
- the discount on the release of reserves.
The last point is found in the original text of the Budget and gives banks a choice. They can release money set aside in budget consolidation reserves, part of which comes from the so-called excess profits tax introduced in 2024. If they do so, lenders will be able to get a tax discount by paying:
- 27.5% in 2026;
- 33% in 2027;
- 40% from 2028 onwards.
The contribution is presented as voluntary by the Government, but in reality it places the banks at a crossroads. Reinvest the reserves next year or, at the latest, in 2027, or keep them blocked at least until the next legislature.
