Budget heads for parliament after Mattarella signs bill

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 23 - The government's 2025 budget bill is set to land in the Lower House after President Sergio Mattarella signed off on it on Wednesday.
    The 30-billion-euro package maintains cuts in the labour-tax wedge for lower earners that the government made in its 2023 budget law and extends them to incomes of up to 40,000 euros, rather than 35,000 previously.
    This means 1.3 million more workers will benefit on top of the 13 million that already do.
    The package also features a reorganization of tax deductions, which opposition parties have said is a sort of hidden tax, and a review of public spending, with ministries told to cut their budgets by around 5%, the health ministry excluded.
    There is also a cap on the salaries of managers of bodies and foundations that receive public money, which is limited to a maximum of 50% of the salary of the first president of the supreme Court of Cassation. The cap does not regards entities that are mentioned in the Constitution, such as regional governments and their bodies, national health system bodies, the inland revenue, pensions and statistics agencies.
    The package also includes a 3.5 billion 'contribution' from Italian banking and insurance companies, which Premier Giorgia Meloni has said will go to the ailing national health service.
    Opposition parties have said this is not in fact a payment but merely a loan since it is merely a postponement to 2027 of a series of tax deductions. (ANSA).