ROME : Italy’s economy, reduce tax evasion and strengthen public finances, a close ally of Silvio Berlusconi and possible future economy minister told Reuters. Renato Brunetta, leader of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party in the lower house of parliament, said a flat tax would be the centre-piece of the campaign by the center-right alliance, which is expected to win the most seats in a March 4 election.
“It will be an epoch-making, revolutionary reform and our decisive weapon in the election campaign,” said Brunetta, a former economics professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata University and one of Berlusconi’s closest collaborators for the last 20 years.
The center-right bloc made up of Forza Italia, the anti-immigrant Northern League and the far-right Brothers of Italy will win the election but probably fall short of a working majority, opinion polls suggest.
Brunetta is proposing a single income and corporate tax rate of about 23 percent. It would replace staggered income taxes going from 23 percent to 43 percent, the main corporate tax rate of 24 percent as well as unpopular regional taxes on business revenue of around 4 percent.
The former public administration minister said in an interview with Reuters that the tax measures would cost state coffers some 50 billion euros ($62.4 billion).
