MILAN (AFP) – Italy plans to raise EUR1 billion in 2025 through a new tax on insurance companies, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said yesterday, as the government seeks to balance its tight budget.
That contribution alongside another from banks – whose tax credits will be temporarily frozen – will be worth a total of more than EUR3.5 billion (USD3.8 billion), Giorgetti told journalists. He was speaking the day after Italian ministers adopted a draft 2025 budget that contained measures worth around EUR30 billion.
“There is a significant intervention on banks and insurance companies, some call it a tax on excess profits, some call it contribution, I call it sacrifice,” said Giorgetti.
“Banks, insurance groups and government ministries are called upon to make sacrifices” in the new budget, which focuses on tax cuts for low-income families, he said.
Deputy Economy Minister Maurizio Leo specified that life insurance policies were exempt from the proposed new tax.
The levy “is expected to be paid by insurance companies, with a temporary mechanism, therefore year after year, we modulate it year by year”, he said. A total of EUR2.5 billion should come from banks, some of whose tax credits will be frozen in 2025 and 2026, with the “effect of increasing the tax burden for two years”, said Leo.
