At this point, you have to wonder why Italy even bothered with the bank windfall tax.
Weekend reports indicate that the windfall tax on Italian banks -- which has already been watered down since it was introduced in August -- will be virtually scrapped. Rather than paying the levy, which would have been 40% of extra profit between 2021 and 2023, banks can avoid it altogether by allocating 2.5x of the amount of the tax to strengthening Tier 1 ratios.
The tax had caused strife within the coalition government and drew criticism from the ECB in a major stumble from the Giorgia Meloni government.
