In an amendment to a new legislative decree, the Italian government has reduced its concession tax and value-added tax for family users of portable phones, or telefonini, says a report in Il Sole 24 Ore. If the amendment is put into effect with the rest of the law, users that bought a domestic telefonino contract after May 17, 1992 would see the concession tax drop from the equivalent to $6.67 from $16.67 and the tax drop to 9% from 19%. Il Sole reports financial minister Stefano De Luca as saying the change would not pose any fiscal problems for the government treasury, since the demand for domestic use would be only supplementary to that of business use. As the paper points out, however, the financial advantages of the revised family contract could favour a continual migration of users from the old formula to the new. If the Parliament doesn’t set a separate date for the lowered tax rates to take effect, domestic users would benefit, presumably, beginning on July 1, the paper said.
