Money, cash, mind you, is a special substance for most Italians. Bills that you can touch, feel, roll in bundles with a rubber ring around, stack in packages, put in newspaper or hide in the attic.
Of course, citizens of the euro zone's third largest economy also pay by bank or credit card: 50 times per capita per year, according to statistics from the European Central Bank. Finns, Dutchmen, Luxembourgers draw their cards four to five times as often, the average European still twice as often. The previously rather card-skeptical Germans now pay more than half of their purchases cashless. Only Italians - and Greeks - are blocking the trend.
Cards are just another trick of the banks to "earn money", say the skeptics, and "under the bed my money is safer than on the bench". In addition, one would become a "glassy citizen": banks, state and wife would then know "what I eat, buy and possibly indulge in extramarital pleasures".
Map? No thanks.
Because the cash still has a positive characteristic: You can save wonderful taxes. "Bill?" Ask the gardener, the car mechanic, the tiler their well-known customers. Because "without" - and of course cash - everything is much cheaper. For the customer and for him.
Companies save sales and income tax and sometimes other taxes, which are common in the high-tax country Italy. Of course, nothing goes without a bill for the big tax evaders, who are talking about millions. Since the books are preferred to be faked. For the little ones treat both sides a tax rebate as legitimate defense against the state raiding the citizens.
The Treasury is thus withdrawn more than 90 billion euros a year. And because they are missing, the streets, the schools and the hospitals are as poor as they are, and the state has become more and more in debt and gets into trouble with the EU watchers in Brussels every year. Tax evasion is "the mother of all problems," says Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
"Bon-companion" against cash
Many governments have thrown themselves into the fight against tax fraud in the past. Italy's multiple regent Silvio Berlusconi - himself convicted of tax offenses - has tried by grace, other governments with rigid rules. For example, for a few years now, even the smallest purchases have to be handled with cash registers that hold every receipt indelibly. If a customer with goods, but without a receipt before the shop caught by the financial police, the seller will be severely punished. For example, a village baker in Tuscany had to pay more than a hundred euros because he had left a bread for 1.50 euros to a neighbor who had no money and wanted to pay the next day.
It did not help anything. The government lost voters and the amount of evaded taxes continued to grow. Because the Italians learned to handle the trap. Thus, when equally buyers and sellers were punished for business without a receipt, unemployed people in Naples created new jobs: as "bon-escorts".
They stood for a small fee from the shop owner, in or in front of the bars and shops and accompanied the customers without receipt to the next intersection. In the case of an inspection, they took a receipt from their pocket - of course always the same.
Ten percent of the state
Because the hard way did not bring anything, you want to try it now quite differently, with a "pact with the honest". For, says head of government Conte, "if everyone pays, they all pay less".
- On the one hand he wants to punish the tax fraudsters harder, they should even at lower sums than today (so far from 150,000 euros) to jail.
- On the other hand, he wants to lure the Italians away from the seductive cash: Who pays a certain sum or a certain portion of his expenses - this is not yet decided - with a card, gets at the end of the year 10 percent of its expenses paid by the state. Because with the card you can hardly handle tax-free transactions.
And who wants to continue to stay partout cash, should at least get pleasure on the receipt. Because with the - for the customer in itself worthless - slips, the buyer can soon indulge in another, national passion: the games. Whether Toto or Lotto, machines or Internet betting, a lot of Italians are there. In the future, they should also be able to win with the receipt from the baker or the car mechanic. In a state-run box-office lottery with cash prizes at the end of each month. Also the details should be finished soon.
One thing the experts in the Ministry of Finance have already calculated: The two measures could fill the treasury already in the first year with an additional five to ten billion euros. Ascending trend.
You can then finally reduce the far too high tax rates and invest more at the same time, Conte raves about his plan in advance, fueling the long-lamentable economic growth.
Well, if the Italians really play. And do not trick.