In 2022, the increase in costs due to increased electricity and gas bills was 91.5 billion euros more than in 2021.
This was announced by the CGIA research office Mestre, stressing that the north-east was the area most affected by the increases: compared to 2021, the estimated additional costs for electricity and gas had increased by 118.1 percent.
While electricity costs rose by 109.5 percent and caused additional monetary costs of 58.9 billion, natural gas costs even rose by 126.4 percent and relieved the Italians’ wallets by 32.6 billion.
The crisis hit companies relatively harder than households: the former paid 61.4 billion more; the second 30 billion euros.
Among the geographic divisions to the north-east, the north-west increased by +116.6 percent, the center by +113.6 percent and the south by +109.9 percent.
At regional level, the regions of Emilia Romagna (+119.2 percent), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (+119 percent) and Trentino-Alto Adige (+118.3 percent) recorded the most significant increases.
Even if the price of electricity has more than doubled in 2022 (+142 percent) according to Mestre’s CGIA research office and has risen from 125 (average 2021) to 303 euros per MWh (average 2022), the price of gas applies on the other hand The price even rose by 167 percent from 46 euros (average 2021) to 123 euros (average 2022).
However, the worst seems to be behind us now. In the first 26 days of 2023, the average price of energy fell to 176 euros and that of gas to 68 euros. However, the latter are 190 or 240 percent higher than those of early 2021.
The survey of the state and corporate profits
“Due to rising inflation, there has also been an increase in spending in the central government and its peripheral areas. In the meantime, however, the increase in revenue collected was very important,” stressed Mestre’s CGIA research office, according to which compared to the same period of 2021, “tax revenue increased by 10% in the first 11 months of last year.” 44 .5 billion euros. This positive rating is due to three factors: ai Impact of the “Relaunch Decree” and the “August Decree”— which ordered extensions and suspensions between 2020 and 2021 — and in particular the hikes in consumer prices that have led to themVAT revenue increases“.
According to the research office CGIA in Mestre, there are also those who have made money with expensive energy, but then evaded the tax office: “After the price hikes in energy products, not everyone lost. For example, many energy companies saw a staggering increase in sales in 2022. For this reason, the Draghi government has taken steps to establish the solidarity contribution which should allow the treasury to collect a total of 10.5 billion euros from this measure. However, according to the balance of November 30, the Ministry of Finance “received” only 2.7 billion euros. It is thus among the 44.5 billion in additional revenue that has been provisionally collected. In the first 11 months of 2022, another 7.8 billion euros are certainly missing.
The Court of Auditors has attempted to identify the reasons for this failure and to point out these critical issues, ie: the identification of the subjects to whom the contribution relates; Method of determining the tax base; possible problems with the constitutionality of the tax (in this context reference is made to judgment no. 10 of 11 February 2015 on the so-called Robin Hood tax); the non-deductibility of the tax; the possible transfer of the contribution to the final consumer.
Despite the reasons given by the beneficiaries of the measure, the Revenue Agency has done well in recent days to announce that it will launch targeted checks on the incremental profits of these big energy companies in the coming months.”
Although the data is preliminary and has been updated to November 22, according to the CGIA research office Mestre, the premiums on electricity and gas bills for companies were only used to offset half of the total amount made available: “Obviously the payments.” Actions taken by the November 30 deadline and actions planned for mid-December are still missing to be counted. However, it seems understandable that many companies, particularly small and micro-enterprises, have had major difficulties applying the measure introduced last year. In fact, there are quite a number of very small entrepreneurs who have refrained from calculating the tax base for the subsequent determination of the tax discount. The latter operation is very complex and has only been carried out directly by the directors in very few cases”.