A Tuscan group representing small and medium-sized enterprises has threatened the government with a tax strike if businesses are forced to close due to Wuhan coronavirus lockdown measures.
Confcommercio Toscana said that it would support any of its 50,000 members across Tuscany in their tax strike. The group’s president, Anna Lapini, stated that “those who govern us have not bothered to stop the costs to our companies, which instead continue to run”. She added that businesses would not have the cash needed to make tax payments.
“Our companies no longer have resources, and we prefer to continue to pay employees and suppliers as a priority over a state that does not understand, but rather tramples on, our reasons for existence. So we pay no more taxes,” Lapini said, according to Il Giornale.
She went on to add that the government was treating companies and professionals like “ATMs without protection or respect”. She explained that instead of payments, letters would be sent to the government, informing them that companies are on strike and money will not be paid.
Lapini added that without real solutions from the government, “the health emergency will become a war-like economic catastrophe”.
The threat of tax strikes comes after members of populist Senator Matteo Salvini’s League and their allies suggested earlier this month that the government stop collecting taxes in areas facing lockdown measures.
League MP Paolo Grimoldi called on the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to suspend taxes, as had been done in February.
Salvini has also come out in support of those affected by the lockdowns, including offering to pay the fine of a couple who was penalised €400 for kissing each other in public.
“If the mayor doesn’t lift the fine, we’ll take care of it,” Salvini had said.
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