During a hearing before the Chamber and Senate Environment Committees on the Plan for the ecological transition, the Minister Roberto Cingolani spoke about ‘Environmentally Harmful Subsidies’. “Their deletion it is something we have to do, which is no longer negotiable. However, social imbalances must not be created which would, at this moment, be very hard for categories that have already undergone the long Covid period. The reflections we are developing on environmentally harmful subsidies are to give an unambiguous signal, and therefore must be removed, however it is about 19 billion, these are important figures, and therefore we must attempt intelligent redistribution operations. An example: if we reduce or cancel the ‘SAD’ supporting certain fossil fuels, this could, to a large extent, compensate for the labor costs of the small transporter, who pays more for fuel but have a tax advantage. , on the tax wedge or on your tax return. Then it is to be defined for which mileage, some algorithm can be made. The suppression would make Italy an excellent figure, in terms of ‘compliance’ with the European Green deal“Said the man at the head of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, as reported by Radiocor.
From these words, especially in the passage where he talks about paying more for fuel, Cingolani may have indirectly suggested the arrival of the maximum excise duty for diesel vehicles. “The concessions are mainly enjoyed by road hauliers. The reduction in excise duty from 0.617 on diesel fuel could disappear shortly“, Reports TgCom24. The choice would be in line with what is expected, from an environmental point of view, from a government that up to now has placed the greatest incentives on electricity in terms of PNRR investment and purchase incentives for vehicles. By eliminating the reduction of the excise duty on diesel, in fact, the state would incentivize motorists to abandon cars with this type of fuel; it would reduce usage emissions; tax revenue would increase.
But what are environmentally harmful subsidies? In 2020, SADs amounted to € 35.7 billion, of which over 21.8 billion in direct form and approximately 13.8 billion in indirect form, according to an estimate by Legambiente obtained by combining different sources including the Saf and Sad Catalog, the state budget, data from Terna, Arera, Gse and Mise. The largest share of direct subsidies concerns the transport sector, for at least 11 billion euros. These are all those incentive measures that intervene, on goods or processes, to reduce the cost of using fossil fuels or exploiting natural resources. So, let’s talk about discounts on taxes (excise duty, VAT and tax credit) for the use of petrol, diesel, gas in the transport sector. These discounts benefit families and businesses, so a simple cut would have negative effects from an economic and social point of view. If Cingolani were to succeed in eliminating these subsidies, it would be difficult not to cushion the impact on the costs of private transport.