The 2022 Budget Law confirmed the set of measures to support Italian businesses, moving the deadline for the support provided for by the National Transition Plan 4.0 to 2025. This confirmation, although characterized by reduced amounts compared to previous years, will allow Italian companies to be able to plan over a fairly broad period, all possible investments that fall within Transition 4.0, with particular attention to technological advancement from an IT perspective. Let's go into the detail of the issue and try to understand what we are talking about and what the opportunities are for businesses.
The expression Transition 4.0 indicates a new industrial policy that the Government has already started in 2018 with reference to the year 2019. With this new course, the intention is to create a more sustainable and inclusive, encouraging investments by Italian companies that decide to look at technological innovation, green investments and carrying out design and aesthetic ideation activities. But what do state inventions consist of? We commonly talk about tax relief linked to industry 4.0, but it is more correct to talk about tax credit.
The tax credit is now the main incentive for business and private investment, although there are still many doubts about this form of tax relief. A recurring question is how the tax credit works. In truth, the mechanism is quite simple: every Italian company pays the State a certain amount of annual taxes, calculated on certain parameters such as turnover or the number of employees. If you make investments according to the actions envisaged by the Transition 4.0 plan, you will accrue a bonus, which will be equal to the total amount invested or a certain percentage of it, which can then be offset in the tax return. This brings us to a second question: how do you recover the 4.0 tax credit? The process, which actually concerns any type of tax credit, is quite simple and is defined as compensation between what the company owes to the State minus the credit accrued according to the Transition Plan 4.0. In this way the company can support its innovation by being able to count on a bonus to recover, usually within 10 years. But what are the possible innovations?
The innovations that a company can embrace are many, and mostly concern the technological and IT part. In any case, 3 macro categories of actions are identified:
If there are only 3 macro categories, the possibilities within each of them to innovate your company are many: we are talking about training expenses, for example, to be able to increase the level of competence of all the workers involved in various capacities in the company. We then talk about consultancy, investments in research and development activities, expenditure on goods that are instrumental to the company's activity.
The technological innovation of companies is driven, in particular, by the development of the IT part. In this area, the investment possibilities that intercept the tax credit of the 4.0 transition plan are numerous and all help to make your company more competitive and efficient. Every company needs IT products to make available to its customers or to manage the organization of internal work. In both cases it is possible to support the costs for these investments entirely with the tax credit. In this way it will be possible to start the development of customized software while being able to count on very important economic support. This will allow you to say goodbye to using software designed for other sectors and finally be able to count on a product designed for your specific needs. Another aspect to take into consideration as an investment is that of the mobile app. It is now a consolidated fact that connection has moved to mobile devices: this applies both to customers and to those who work within companies.
The tax credit of the Transition Plan 4.0 can be an excellent opportunity to give a boost to the competitiveness of your company. Investments do not necessarily have to be in customer-facing IT products but can also aim to improve your company's IT structure from the inside. With the possibility of purchasing new capital goods, this issue becomes even more important. Imagine the need, after purchasing a new machine, of having to transfer your data from one device to another or of having to put two different machines in communication with each other: technically we are talking about migration, which can affect IT systems even in the cloud, or integration of IT systems. Very complex procedures which today can benefit from an economic investment which greatly reduces the expense burden.
