Card payment refund scheme aims to wean tax-dodging Italians off cash

Tens of millions of Italians have signed up for a government plan giving a 10pc refund for card payments in merchants in just two weeks in an try by Rome to slice tax evasion and raise suppliers strike by coronavirus constraints.

The roaring start out to the plan, which calls for downloading an application followed by a lengthy registration method, comes in stark contrast to Italians’ lukewarm response to the less complicated Immuni application released in June to trace Covid infections.

The so-referred to as “cashback” program will formally kick off next thirty day period but the pilot programme from Dec 8 to the finish of the finish, which will allow savings of up to €150, has already attracted a tenth of the adult inhabitants.

“Over 5m subscriptions is no small feat,” claimed Leonzio Rizzo, a professor of general public finance at the College of Ferrara, explained to Reuters.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government thinks that weaning Italians off hard cash can decrease rampant tax evasion, believed by the Treasury at about €110bn a year.

Digital payments, not like notes and coins, are harder to hide from the taxman.

Nevertheless the programme has its critics, including the European Central Bank, which claimed last week that governments really should acquire a neutral approach to implies of payments and complained it had not been consulted.