The 30 billion maneuver with the signature of Mario Draghi is still being examined by parliament and with it the news on the corporate welfare front. Among the more than 200 articles of the former financial company, here are the measures that aim at improving the lives of employees inside and outside the workplace, with beneficial impacts on productivity.
For example, the aim is to tax the value of the benefits granted by the company to the worker for entrepreneurs, if they do not exceed 516 euros. The goal, thanks to an amendment signed by senators Emilio Floris and Roberta Toffanin, and to make structural the measure already contained in the Sostegni decree of last spring, which confirmed until the end of 2021 the doubling to 516 euros of the threshold within which goods and services recognized to workers (the fringe benefits) do not contribute to generating income for the company (and therefore taxable and subject to taxation), from the original 258 euros. Now the aim is to overcome this time limit or, at least, as an amendment to the first signature sen. Nunzia Catalfo to extend the doubling of the threshold for one year.
The measure, which has an impact on Article 51 of the Consolidated Law on Income (TUIR), results in the package of proposals reported by the various parliamentary groups, the only ones on which the examination will focus. Both an extension proposal and a stabilization proposal were reported. This is good news if we consider that fringe benefits in this year and a half of pandemic have shown all their value and social impact both as a form of supplementing household income and as a simplified corporate welfare model. The availability of over 500 euros has made it possible to issue shopping vouchers and purchase vouchers of a larger value with obvious benefits for the pockets of workers, for the revival of internal consumption and without impacting on the labor costs of companies, in an evident period of difficulty. . Roberta Toffanin , senator and vice president of the Finance Commission, explains to Formiche.net how “corporate welfare must increasingly become the protagonist of a new working model. The pandemic, unfortunately still underway, has done nothing but accelerate a virtuous process on which many Italian companies have been focusing for several years now. But it’s time to go a step further. This is why I signed an amendment in the Budget Law together with my colleague Emilio Floris to support – and perhaps expand – fringe benefits, a simplified form of corporate welfare much appreciated by both entrepreneurs and employees “.
According to Toffanin, “for example, it becomes imperative to structurally increase the exemption threshold for these ancillary goods to € 516.14, already obtained as an emergency measure for 2021. The role of fringe benefits is fundamental for motivating workers, encouraging economy, supporting families especially in times of difficulty such as the ones we are experiencing, in which price increases, starting from the rise in bills, heavily affect family budgets. But the function of fringe benefits goes beyond the economic aspect and acquires a significant social role, also favorably affecting relations between employers and workers. And the legacy that Forza Italia collects from a great labor lawyer, Marco Biagi, who had traced a model of work with the person at the center.Emmanuele Massagli , president of the Italian corporate welfare association, also has his say
. “The widening of the threshold of art. 51 paragraph and appropriate for at least four reasons. The first is that the value of the goods and services transferred by the employer to the employee not included in the earned income and has already been doubled to 516.43 instead of the previous 258.23 with the Agost decree “(for the last five months of 2020) and subsequently with the Sostegni decree, which extended the measure to the whole of 2021 due to the advantages experienced both by workers and by companies and by the State. After almost two years of experimentation, what sense would it be to repeal the law or confirm it for just one year
It is more appropriate to structure it (even considering the modest amount), since many multi-year welfare plans are built around this threshold, which should necessarily be reformulated when the threshold of 516.43 euros is not confirmed “.
It’s not all. “The second concerns the main users of this provision. The fulcrum of corporate welfare is found in article 51 of the Tuir itself, in the previous paragraph, 2, which regulates some of the most well-known goods and services: health care, meal vouchers, public transport subscriptions, scholarships etc … Corporate welfare and an institute now established in large companies and with a strong average diffusion. Only in recent years have even the smallest companies begun to know the advantages of this tool, thanks to the extreme comprehensibility and usability of paragraph 3. It is no coincidence that the collective agreements that from 2017 onwards began to provide for the obligation of welfare (the main one and that of metalworkers) have always set thresholds in line with 258 euros,
Massage him draw a line. “In summary: flexible benefits have become the corporate welfare of micro and small businesses, an entrance channel to a world that is certainly more varied and complex, but precisely for this reason often not considered by those with small and outdated administrative structures. Going back to the past would mean penalizing employees of smaller companies first of all. The third is an apparently more technical, but significant reason: although the Tuir provides for the possibility of updating all the economic thresholds contained in the same Consolidated Law in line with the increase in the cost of living, the share of 258.23 euros is still since the end of the 1980s (500,000 lire)!
And it is quite clear that failure to adapt for over thirty years has weakened the purpose and potential of that measure, which undoubtedly needs to be updated. Finally, the most practical and simplest reason of all: this measure is very much liked by the workers, who have seen their spending capacity increased; it has been highly appreciated by companies, which have managed to take care of some social needs of their employees and have been rewarded with greater loyalty and productivity; lastly, and agreed to the State, which with the revenue generated (VAT above all), and with the emergence of many transactions often settled illegally, has amply covered the costs of doubling to 516 euros. Why not confirm a win-win-win measure like this
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