From property assets to the EU Land Registry, passing through short-term rentals and green homes: this is how the left risks hitting the middle class.
The path was traced by the former historic leader of Rifondazione Comunista, Fausto Bertinotti, who in an interview with Corriere della Sera over twenty years ago (March 2005) explained that certainly “private property cannot be repealed by decree, but it is an objective” to be pursued over time.
Here, upon closer inspection, his heirs – from Fratoianni, Bonelli and Salis up to Schlein – are still pursuing that objective with a tenacity that only the most ideological maximalist left manages to have. The history of patrimonialism – which cyclically returns to monopolize the political debate – is perhaps the most striking example. But the truth is that a new tax on wealth is only the tip of the iceberg of the mad desire of what is now called Campo Largo (or in any case of its majority) to get their hands on our homes. From short-term rentals to the reform of the Land Registry to inheritance tax and the directive on green homes, there is no red-coloured economic policy that does not touch the brick.
Let’s be clear, we are at the beginning of a long electoral campaign and on the new tax to eradicate wealth Elly Schlein has already partially backtracked – going from “I have always been in favor” to “it is not in the program of the progressive camp” in the space of a week – but the sinister asset projects have already been in black and white for some time.
There is the one presented by the CGIL and on which more than one thinks the Democratic Party can converge. It provides for a rate of 1.3% on half a million taxpayers, the richest, those with assets of 2 million euros. And it would raise around 26 billion a year. But there are several variations on the theme. For example, Senator Tino Magni of Avs presented an amendment to the latest maneuver which starts from the same rate as the CGIL, but specifies that IMU and TASI would no longer be paid on properties taxed with the new tax. Then there is “1% Equo”: a national campaign for a popular initiative law which, in addition to several university professors, finds among the first signatories, Maurizio Acerbo (secretary of Rifondazione Comunista) and Anna Camposampiero (European Left), and in the promoting committee, lo and behold, Fausto Bertinotti. On the table there are progressive rates between 1 and 3.5% on the portion of assets exceeding the 2 million threshold, excluding the first home, and an alignment to the European average of inheritance tax. Which means new rates that start from 8% (up to 500 thousand euros), go through 12% (between 500 thousand euros and one million) and reach up to 15% over one million. If we think that today it fluctuates between 4 and 8%, let’s add a few million good reasons to avoid passing on to a better life. And be careful because the tightening of the tax on assets (including real estate) transferred to heirs is another strong point of the left, with the Avs and the Italian Left leading the way.
In short, if we talk about proposals for hammering the brick we are spoiled for choice. But it is perhaps in the crackdown on short-term rentals that the wide field is at its best. Because it is clear that – especially in large tourist cities – there is a problem of overtourism. But it is one thing to face it with a national law that imposes rules, it is another thing to wage religious battles as happens in Florence.
In the Tuscan capital, the mayor Sara Funaro has “set up” a sort of outpost in the global fight against Airbnb. Not only has it prohibited the authorization of new tourist contracts in the absence of a green light from the Municipality, but it has also imposed very strict limits on the structures (kitchens no smaller than 9 square metres), fines of up to 10 thousand euros for those who “go astray” and has managed to expand the ban area from the historic center to the outskirts in a very short time.
However, not without obvious contradictions. With the TAR recently accepting the requests of Namira, the savings management company that in 2024 purchased the approximately 18 thousand square meters of the Bufalini complex, a few steps from the Duomo, from Tom Barack. Moral of the story: now the asset management company will be able to manage (through a fund) the building using the short-term rental formula for a hundred premium apartments. Reason? According to the judges, last year’s variant of the municipal urban plan had excluded the complex from the block foreseen for Airbnbs. And so it happens that Florentines who have inherited a studio apartment in the center cannot use it to generate income as they see fit, while some funds make money through hit-and-run rentals on ultra-luxury accommodation. A classic of the left. So much so that Florence’s “illiberal” mania is winning converts.
Panorama asked Confconstruction, the association that protects the rights of owners, for a mapping of the regulations against short-term rentals in the Bel Paese and a very red picture emerged. Bologna, led by the dem Matteo Lepore, has already legislated. And the same goes for Bergamo. Naples, in Palazzo San Giacomo there is another prominent exponent of the Democratic Party, Gaetano Manfredi, he is about to do so. As well as Rome, which fields a former democratic Economy Minister, Roberto Gualtieri, at the Capitol.
Be careful, because the Regions can also regulate. And guess which ones moved first? The very red Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. With Puglia, since January it has been governed by the Piddino Antonio Decaro, who is preparing to do the same. For example, not even Venice, which for a thousand reasons is the city that most needs to regulate tourist hospitality, has gotten this far. And it is probably no coincidence that it was led by an entrepreneur like Luigi Brugnaro, not exactly a leftist.
Then the reform of the Land Registry. Another Brussels evergreen that finds fertile ground in the camp of the current opposition. For the series “Europe asks us” and the progressives don’t have to be told it a second time. No EU recommendation passes without there being a new appeal for the need to review the estimates. Due to the insistence of the proposal, the comparison holds up only with the request to sign the ESM. Now that the classification of properties in the country must also be adjusted for a fiscal justice requirement, there is some basis in truth. The point is that such an operation will lead to an increase in tax pressure (IMU on second homes, but not only) especially on the middle class, the one that the broad field pretends to protect and instead never “sees”.
And Europe could not be missing with the imperishable directive on green homes. Which in the final version is much toned down compared to the origins. Fortunately, there is no longer an obligation for every owner to make their home more efficient by bringing it to class E by 2030 or D by 2033, but the reduction in consumption has been brought to a national scale. In a nutshell: it is the individual countries that will have to plan how to achieve the objectives (-16% of energy consumption in residential buildings by 2030). This does not mean that there will be no restructuring, but the ball is in the government’s court.
Which has already thrown it into lateral foul play (it was supposed to implement the directive by May but didn’t do so). After all, it is enough to take the data of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima) and Velux Italia to quantify the expenditure at around 85 billion euros by 2030 for energy requalification alone. Of course, the works would bring with it a notable turnover, but another sword of Damocles of just under 30 thousand euros for at least 3 million homes would fall on the heads of Italians. «We believe», the president of Confedilizia Giorgio Spaziani Testa explains to Panorama, «that there is no urgency to transpose the directive (other than urging its transposition, as some opposition parties do) and that, in any case, from a government that has deservedly distinguished itself for having voted against the provision, we expect it to address the issue of energy efficiency of buildings through adequate incentives and certainly not by imposing obligations».
In short, the battle over properties to be “broke” has just begun, but among the thousand doubts that surround it there is a granite certainty. When it comes to deciding, the left will know which side to take: against our homes.
