2023-08-08 13:24:00
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
Salvini says it’s about billions.
(Foto: IMAGO/Independent Photo Agency Int.)
Rome The Italian government has approved the introduction of a tax on banks’ “excess profits”. With this newly introduced 40 percent tax, the government hopes to take “several billion” euros in order to relieve citizens, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Lega leader Matteo Salvini said after a cabinet meeting. The measure applies to 2023.
According to insiders, the special tax should flush almost three billion euros into the state coffers, the Reuters news agency reported. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wants to use the tax to skim off profits that the financial institutions are making as a result of the rapid change in monetary policy by the European Central Bank. The government had criticized the gap in interest rates for loans and interest rates for savings in favor of the banks.
The major bank Intesa Sanpaolo alone had stated that it expected income of more than 13.5 billion euros due to rising interest margins.
“You only have to look at the profits of the banks in the first half of 2023, also the result of the interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank, to see that we are not talking about a few million, but probably billions,” Salvini emphasized.
Bank stocks are suffering across Europe
The tax plans weighed on bank stocks across Europe. The banking index on the Milan Stock Exchange lost around six percent on Tuesday morning. Bper Banca, Fineco Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit fell between 5.5 and 7.7 percent. The shares of Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank fell by 3.5 and 2.2 percent. Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas in Paris, ING in Amsterdam and Banco Santander in Madrid also lost around two percent.
In Spain, the incumbent coalition government of the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the left has already introduced a special tax for banks. The levy on the supposed excess profits of the financial institutions taxes the income from interest income and commissions for 2022 and 2023 at 4.8 percent and is intended to bring the state around three billion euros in addition.
>> Read here: Commerzbank increases profit strongly
If there had been a change of government after the early parliamentary elections on July 23, banks could have counted on an end to the bank tax. But the Conservative lead candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, fell short of the majority needed to form a government, even though his Partido Popular party won the most votes and seats.
The special tax weighs heavily on the profits of Spanish banks. The sale cost Caixabank, the market leader in Spain, 373 million euros or 44 percent of total net income in the first quarter of this year.
More: “Very strong first quarter” – Europe’s banks make more profit
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