The Council of Ministers on 16 September scrapped, for the whole of 2027, the vehicle tax (bollo) on one car per citizen: petrol or diesel cars up to 80 kW, roughly 109 horsepower, plus motorbikes. That covers 14.5 million vehicles, at a cost of €2.36 billion that the State will hand over to the Regions, and Giorgia Meloni has promised that the measure will become permanent through the budget law. The public’s reaction? Outrage.
This is not a joke.
Just scroll through the comments beneath the news — including under the version published by this newspaper — and watch the spectacle unfold. The most upvoted comment, with nearly two thousand likes, talks of an election-campaign gimmick and suckers who’ll fall for it.
Some bet that the Regions will simply claw the money back by raising income tax.
Others insist the exemption applies to only one car per household, when in fact it applies per person, not per family. Someone vents because their Vespa’s tax is just €35 a year and “they think we’re all idiots,” unaware that motorbikes are included in the measure too, meaning that very Vespa will most likely stop paying the tax altogether.
And then there’s the person who, betrayed by autocorrect, complains about chardonnay at €2.30 a litre.
On that one, honestly, we’re all in solidarity.
To be fair: some of the criticism has substance.
The funding is guaranteed only for 2027 — conveniently the year of the general election — and the word “permanent” currently exists only in press conferences, not in the decree itself. Tuscany’s regional president disputes the figures, arguing that the reimbursement to his Region covers less than a third of the lost revenue.
In the same Council meeting, the discount on diesel excise duty was reduced, and from 5 October the variable “mobile” excise tax returns. There’s also historical precedent: the ICI property tax on primary residences, abolished in 2008 after being promised during a campaign, quietly returned under a different name in 2012.
But the real point here is something else: the reflex reaction.
If the State doesn’t cut a tax, it’s squeezing citizens dry.
If it cuts it for just one year, it’s propaganda.
If it promises to scrap it forever, people ask who’s footing the bill.
If the State pays, it must have cut something else.
If the cut applies only to small cars, it’s forgotten the middle class.
If it applied to everyone, it would be a handout to the rich with their SUVs.
There is no winning combination: it’s a courtroom where the verdict arrives before the trial, and nobody actually reads the decree.
This isn’t uniquely Italian.
In the summer of 2022, Germany launched a €9-a-month transport pass for three months: trains packed, millions of tickets sold, and immediately a chorus of complaints about overcrowded carriages and a timed electoral stunt.
When it became permanent, priced at €49, the chorus shifted to complaints about the price being too high. Then the pass got more expensive still, and so did the grumbling. The pattern is identical: temporary is a con, permanent costs too much.
And here on Monte Titano, we shouldn’t laugh too hard.
The vehicle circulation tax brings in more than five million euros a year for the State, and the question — “what about San Marino?” — has already been asked.
Just imagine if it were scrapped tomorrow: within half an hour someone would ask who’s covering the shortfall, someone else would cry electoral stunt, and a third person would point out that their own car is registered abroad anyway.
The IGR tax reform saw a similar dynamic play out: the protests had legitimate grounds and led to real changes, but when the government rewrote the text to accommodate many of the unions’ requests, the prevailing response among critics wasn’t “we got something done” — it was “the government has contradicted itself.”
Stay the course, and you’re arrogant. Listen to the public, and you’re inconsistent.
The same logic applies to the Association Agreement with Europe: to some, it’s selling out sovereignty; to others, it comes too late and delivers too little. Often it’s the very same people, saying both things a week apart.
Being “perpetually unsatisfied” should not be confused with having a critical mind — the two are entirely different things.
A critical mind reads the decree, checks the funding, demands accountability for promises, and only then passes judgment.
The perpetually unsatisfied read the headline, smell a scam, and comment before reaching the second paragraph.
The former is good for democracy; the latter is good for social media engagement and nothing else.
And yes, we know: many readers will stop at the headline.
Comments are welcome.
