The board of directors and supervision of the INPS denounces the cost of unpaid and bewildered contributory credits between 2018 and 2022. And now the State will have to cover the deficit with public funds
Pensions alarm: there is a hole of 6.6 billion euros. And now? The board of directors and supervision (CIV) of the INPS has quantified the account to be addressed and now the State will have to pay these 6.6 billion in the coming years, drawing on general taxationto guarantee pensions for workers. It is not a shortage due to accounting errors or financial speculations, but It is the exceptional effects effect approved between 2018 and 2022 who canceled billions of contributory credits, 16.4 billion, with a negative impact of 13.7 billion on the general report 2024 of the Institute
Those credits, exceeded and therefore inevitable and eliminated by the financial statements, however, had a concrete value, were contributions due by companies and never paid, in the period before 2015. The problem? Despite that money never entered the INPS coffers, the corresponding pensions were and must still be paid, concerning employee workers. There is in fact The principle of the automatic performance: If a company does not pay, the employee cannot be penalized. While for self -employed workers, failure to pay simply involves the loss of the service, for employees this is not worth. The INPS must still provide pensions, even if the corresponding payments are missing. And the account inevitably falls on the whole pension system.
The Budget Law 2023 led to 9.9 billion ascribable to the excerpt of the credits up to a thousand euros accrued between 2000 and 2015. From the decree of the 2021 support, 5.4 billion of excerpts up to 5 thousand euros arrive relating to the period 2000-2010. With a decree connected to the 2019 maneuver, 400 million are added for the excerpt of credits up to a thousand euros of the same period. As, The cancellation of years has generated the “social security hole” of 6.6 billion euros.
To put the patch, the CIV asks, the state must now be, through general taxation. Therefore, taxpayers will cover the costs of pension benefits linked to contributions never collected and excerpt. Gradually, in the coming years, so that the hole does not fall directly on the INPS accounts and therefore on future pensions.
To the question is added a flaw in the INPS mechanisms, always reported by the address and supervision council: the management of information flows between the Chambers of Commerce and the Institute. Too many communications of cessations of activities by craftsmen and traders arrive late. Only in 2023 this caused the cancellation of further credits for 778 million euros.
The debate has obviously opened. On the one hand there are those who underline that the eliminated credits were difficult to pay off and quini keep them in the balance sheet would have been worse. From the top side there is the complaint (for example of the unions) of a “distorting” system, which makes the excerpts and amnesty of the contributory evasion on the community fall. The treasure in 2023 has already transferred 164 billion to INPS to finance the loss management and the main welfare measures. Now 6.6 billion euros are added. The alarm launched by the CIV is clear: every euro not paid today, if ignored, risks becoming an unsustainable weight tomorrow.
