This gets on my goat, so to speak. What? Well, being registered for IVA (UK – VAT, Italy – IVA) I have to pay VAT to the Italian VAT man. OK, this is normal, no problem, standard business practice. Except, the time it takes Italian companies (don’t even mention local or central government…) to get round to paying means that you end up paying out VAT before you get paid. This is not all that fair in my opinion. I don’t think I should become liable for the payment of VAT until I have received payment on the invoices I have submitted.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Either the government here should do something useful for a change and change the law to ensure that invoices are settled within the period in which the VAT becomes payable or those submitting invoices should not have to pay out VAT until they have been paid. You never know, doing something sensible like this may even reduce tax fiddling.
By the way, you may have heard that Italy has managed to reduce its debt. Prodi seems very happy, as you would expect, only nobody seems to know what exactly Prodi and his minions have done to have obtained the reductions. Could it be that Berluco’s boys were more effective financial managers? Perish the thought. Not. So Prodi gets to bathe in what should possibly have been Berlusco’s glory. Just shows to go – if the politicos do nothing, things become magically better; which begs the question – Why do we need so many of these people? Or am I just being naive? Probably.
