The Focus Paper “The 2019 budget: a summary of the definitive text” (in Italian) examines the content of the budget package, which was modified considerably during the parliamentary examination of the two legislative documents that represent its backbone. Decree Law 119/2018 (ratified with Law 136/2018) containing provisions on tax and financial matters was partially amended, while the Budget Act (Law 145/2018) was overhauled following the agreement reached between the Government and the European Commission.
In addition to the re-determination of the effects of some of the measures already present in the initial version of the budget, during the parliamentary process new provisions were included that impacted the budget balances, which differed significantly from those hypothesised in the initial version of the budget package. The amendments also affected the very composition of the budget, increasing revenue and lowering expenditure considerably. On the uses side of the equation, the main measures ‑ in addition to the neutralisation of the clauses increasing VAT and excise duties ‑ concerned families and combating poverty, public investment and investment grants, businesses and self-employed workers and public employment.
On the funding side ‒ in addition to increasing the scale of the VAT and excise duty increases in 2020-2021 ‒ the major changes involve on tax measures and combating tax evasion, investment grants, limiting the indexation of larger pensions and a series of measures with a smaller financial impact, which focused especially on the rationalisation of expenditure.
