Italy Eyes 24 Percent Corporate Tax Rate
During his speech to the Ambassadors’ Conference at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 27, Premier Matteo Renzi disclosed that one of his objectives is to reduce Italy’s headline corporate tax rate to 24 percent in 2017, well below the level in most European countries.
He noted that the combined rate of the Italian corporate income tax (IRES) and regional tax on production (IRAP) reaches 31.4 percent. Lowering this burden to 24 percent would enable Italy to go from one of the burdensome countries in the European Union to one of the most competitive. Significantly, for Renzi, this would be one percent below the headline corporate tax rate in Spain (after it cuts its rate to 25 percent in 2016).
Renzi’s announcement is in line with his previous statements earlier this month when he announced what he called a “Copernican Revolution” for the Italian tax system, in which the country’s taxes will be reduced over the next three years by a further EUR45bn (USD49.6bn).
He had then pointed out his intention to eliminate local property and service taxes on primary residencies in 2016; reduce the incidence of IRES and IRAP in 2017; and cut the individual income tax (IRPEF) paid by those on lower and middle incomes in 2018.
Renzi has insisted that the Government’s underlying objective is to demonstrate that “Italy is no longer the country of high taxation.”
Source: taxnews- Italy Eyes 24 Percent Corporate Tax Rate
