The lightning strike from the (slightly) clear sky yesterday was thrown by the Revenue Agency with circular no. 33 / E / 2020 of 28 December. With a questionable interpretation, which immediately made the FIP take a stand, he served a poisoned New Year’s Eve dinner to the world of sport in general and to that of football in particular. In fact, all those measures in favor of professional sportsmen have been suspended, i.e. the possibility of applying the tax bonus regime contained in the Growth decree approved in spring 2019.
We are therefore talking, just to give an example, of the invalidation of the contracts that allowed the arrival in Italy of sports champions such as Ibrahimovic in football and, very recently, Marco Belinelli in basketball: the voracious Tax Government intervention, all taxes and withholdings to be applied under the old tax regime.
The cause of the agency’s interpretation lies in the delay of a year and a half in the issuing of an implementing decree and in the usual restrictive interpretation. Lack of politics and the Government which, obtorto collected by the lack of approval of that part of the reform that sent home the presidents of CONI federations that are overly long-term, indirectly takes revenge by removing oxygen. In fact, there are still no implementing decrees for the sponsorship bonus which expires on December 31st, aid to professional clubs that all governments have more or less granted in the rest of Europe, and transparent funding for the renewal of sports facilities.
But the so-called “impatriate bonus” allows athletes to arrive (or return) to Italy who otherwise could hardly come thanks to a 50% discounted tax burden. But it was enough a quibble that Marco Bellinazzo and Stefano Grilli explain well today on Il Sole 24 Ore from the entrance agency to send everything upside down.
