Savings of Italians put to the test. The economic situation of recent years, with the energy crisis, geopolitical turbulence and constant price growth has inevitably eroded the economic reserves of Italians. The aid put in place by various governments to try to help the weakest sections of the population has certainly provided some support (think of the elimination of the general system costs of bills), but certainly has not been able to remedy a completely exceptional international situation. According to the latest data published by Istat, the propensity to save among families has therefore gone from 7.8% in 2022 to 6.3% in 2023, reaching the lowest level since 1995. Going into the details of the data we can see how in In 2023, household disposable income increased by 4.7%, but net of inflation, purchasing power decreased by 0.5%. The data that gives us hope, however, is the propensity to save which appears to be increasing by 0.9% compared to the previous quarter, reaching 7%. This underlines that the recovery, albeit slow, linked to the increase in inflation prices is underway. The EU's monetary policies and the decision to start cutting interest rates or not also inevitably come into play in this dynamic.
Faced with this situation, the new measures implemented by the government have lightened the tax bills of some Italians. The interventions to cut the tax wedge have in fact produced their benefits for employees who have recorded a decline in contributions paid (-4.3% -2.2 billion euros). Less good for self-employed workers who instead had an increase (+7.3%, +2.9 billion euros). Another less than brilliant figure concerns the increase in tax pressure. Istat has in fact certified that the taxes paid by Italian families in 2023 grew by 24.6 billion euros (+10.7% compared to 2022) due to the growth of Irpef (+10.2%) and withholdings on capital income and managed savings (+23%). Aspects on which the Mef focused during the latest report on taxation and reform, where it explained that the next steps will certainly have to look at the middle class and the need to extend relief to the weakest groups of self-employed workers. However, there are positive data for social benefits. In fact, Istat has highlighted how these recorded an increase of 4.3%, to +19.1 billion euros (+2.4% in 2022, +10.2 billion euros). Dynamic linked to the increase in pensions, annuities paid by social security institutions (+21.5 billion euros per year) and measures relating to family allowances (+3 billion).
And finally the renovations. The fact of having only weakened the superbonus meant that in 2023 (remember that before the last intervention, those who presented Cilas by February 2023 could have the possibility of transferring the credit or having the discount on the invoice, with the only penalty being the percentage of the subsidy fell from 110 to 90%, to 70% and to 65%), the growth of family investments for the purchase and extraordinary maintenance of homes continued (+3%, +3.4 billion euro compared to 2022), albeit at a slower pace than in the previous two years. Families benefited from 78.4 billion euros of investment incentives provided by public administrations during the year (+21.2 billion euros compared to 2022). However, the government's latest crackdown on the super bonus was necessary to secure the accounts also in view of the new European rules.
