2013. Here comes the Redditometer

Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. We begin with one of the stories we were most passionate about.

New year new life, and in the boat you go carefree

From Boats by Motor 2013, no.2, February, pp. 18-19.

It’s not only the Redditometer that, with its new criteria for analysis between income and expenses, eases the IRS’s pressure on boaters, but there’s also the Single Registration Register, which makes checks at sea unnecessary. And those with doubts can take the Redditest.

It has filled the headlines of all the newspapers, but this time not to polemicize, but rather to explain how it is made, how it works and, most importantly, whether or not it should be “feared.” In fact, the new Redditometer came into force with an Implementing Decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance and published in the Official Gazette on January 4, but, in fact, it will be operational between February and March, to give time to the Internal Revenue Service to draw up the selective lists of taxpayers to be checked, to whom income from 2009 onwards will be scrutinized, i.e., those from 2010 returns, because checks more than 5 years back in time cannot be made. We have already anticipated that the new Redditometer will bring down the automatism owner = tax evader and the commonplace that anyone who has a boat is “necessarily” an over-rich person, because the assessment criterion no longer acts through mere mathematical calculation by means of coefficients predetermined on a presumptive basis of the expense of maintaining a boat (regardless of whether that money was spent or not), but on certain data, i.e., the expenses actually incurred. Thus someone who buys a boat and in addition spends more money to accessorize it, modify it or fix it, will have to prove that he or she has a certain amount of income, but someone who, on the other hand, the same kind of boat has perhaps inherited it or received it as a gift and, even if the boat needed it, has not made repairs, will not necessarily have to have an income similar to the previous example, because, even if “nominally” the maintenance of that boat requires a certain economic commitment, actually that expense has not been made, so the taxpayer in question is “congruous.” Savings accumulated over one’s lifetime also come under this umbrella, as long as they have traceability and there is consistency. Someone who, for example, throughout his life has always earned a salary comparable to a current one of 1,300 to 1,500 euros per month and has a million euros set aside, it is not enough to say that it is his life savings, because it is obvious that it would have been impossible for him to set it aside. If, on the other hand, that million euros was earned through a series of lucky investments in the stock market or, why not, he won them at the Superenalotto, at that point he will have all the tools to prove the origin of those savings and for the redditometer he can be congruous even if he has a boat and earns 1000 euros a month. The same goes for “handouts” from relatives: it is hard to think that an uncle from America or a parent came with a suitcase full of money to put under the mattress, easier instead to think that he made a transfer, which is documentable. In short, if the IRS comes knocking at the door, it is not to know why one owns the boat, but to know where the money spent on that repair was taken if that expenditure is not congruent with one’s income.

With your money do whatever you want, but watch out for the Istat

“Whether the taxpayer shells out 200,000 euros to buy tomatoes, or a boat, a house or a car, it’s all the same to us. We don’t care how he spends the money, but how much he spends.” This was said by Internal Revenue Service Director Attilio Befera just before Christmas during the presentation of the new synthetic assessment, so the IRS is not going to scrutinize whether that asset is worth the amount spent, but, as we have seen, whether that expenditure is congruent with one’s income. And here the range of items is definitely wide open, because the tax audits are going to assess how much has been spent in every sphere of family and daily life, and they are going to go into the pockets not only of the tax return holder, but also of his or her dependents. In fact, if before the alarm bells were mainly major assets, such as the so-called “big car” or, indeed, the boat, now it is the sum of everything each family member spends. There are more than 100 items of expenditure monitored by the Redditometer; to give examples, they range from money spent at the hairdresser’s to euros on newspapers and magazines, through the purchase of cookware, bed sheets, clothing, flowers, in short, everything that is part of everyday life, to which are added, of course, investments, travel, houses, household staff, exclusive clubs, private schools, etc. But don’t worry, you don’t need Swiss precision, because there is a 20% margin of tolerance beyond the fairness threshold, after which checks are automatically triggered. Of course, it will not be necessary to keep aside receipts from the newsstand or the florist, because where expenses cannot be matched on data known to the Agency or obtainable from the tax registry, the benchmark goes on a presumptive basis taking into account the Istat average for each of the 11 family types taken into account by the Redditometer. For example, if for a couple with one child living in the South the Istat average predicts a food expenditure of let’s say 500 euros per month, or 6,000 euros per year, it is clear that against a declaration of 10,000 euros per year the taxpayer cannot be congruous if the tax registry shows that he also owns a car, pays rent and has two insurance contracts.

The structure of the Redditometer

The assessment is based on basic data that are broken down into more than 100 expenditure items divided into 11 categories, 55 family types, divided not only by household (e.g., single person, couple, couple with children, single parent with one or more children, etc.) but also by age group; in reality there are 11 family types which are then multiplied by the 5 geographical areas (Northwest, Northeast, Center, South, Islands), because the basic evaluation parameters vary according to the geographical area in which the family under consideration lives.

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