Superbonus 110%, but in the end what was the impact on the state accounts?

The super bonus 110% has grown the deficit/GDP ratio 2022. And it forced to revise in the same direction that of the previous two years. Istat states it in its dedicated note to GDP and public administration debt for 2022. A document that has rekindled the discussion around the tax incentive wanted by the second government of the former prime minister Joseph Conte to raise construction after the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the numbers. The deficit/GDP ratio for the 2022 was attested to8%. A value, explains Istat, lower than the 9% of 2021, but higher than 5.6% envisaged by the update note to the Economic and Financial Document (Nadef). The person responsible is precisely the super bonus 110%. Or rather, the new ways in which it is accounted for.

What has changed

The full text of the note released by the National Institute of Statistics allows us to understand what it means. The question is related to the changes to the Manual on government deficits and debta kind of instruction booklet for the management of public budgets within the European Union. Changes that have also impacted the accounting of building bonuses.

Without going too far into the technical details, the problem is related to the fact that with the old rules the impact of 71.7 billion of euros linked to superbonus 110% could be spread over several budgetsbased on actual credit collection. With the new rules, however, it can no longer be counted as a minor tax revenue, but must be considered as a major expense. And therefore it enters the balance sheet in the year in which it is recognised. This is why it had an impact on the deficit/GDP ratio.

It’s not all. The change also affects 2020 and 2021, years for which Istat revised the deficit/GDP ratio upwards respectively for 0.2 And 1.8 percentage points. As for 2023, the 110% superbonus will have an impact for at least 3 billion, an amount equal to the cost for the State of the works admitted to deduction in the month of January. To these we must add those relating to the month of February. After that, the government-imposed stop to the credit market effectively put a tombstone on this measure.

The savings and the raise

The purely accounting ones, however, are not the only ways in which the 110% superbonus impacts on the state accounts: there is also the issue of capital expenditure. To try to understand it, it is useful to start from a number. Indeed, a percentage: -1.3%. From time to time in 2022 capital expenditures decreased, that budget item in which the 110% superbonus is counted. In absolute numbers, it is a savings of 1.8 billion euros. Which, in itself, is not necessarily good news, in the sense that capital expenditure also includes investments. Which in fact in 2022 decreased, Istat always states, by1.1%.