What is affecting the automotive sector is an all-round crisis. No one is excluded, including the rental sector, until 2011 a "happy island" in an already stormy sea. Italian taxation, which has now become unsustainable, and the economic situation have blocked the growth of the sector whose indices, in these months of 2012, have turned negative. And the situation is destined to worsen due to the tax squeeze envisaged for cars in the Labor Bill which withdraws a part of the resources necessary for the labor reform from the company car itself, providing for a lower possibility of deduction for vehicles assigned to employees ( from 90 to 70%) and for those available to businesses and professionals (from 40 to 27.5%).
The revenue expected from the Treasury, thanks to the lower deductibility of company car costs, is 801 million for 2013, 1,057 million for 2014 and 1,057 for 2015. However, the provision risks holding back a sector which in recent years it has supported the car market and its related industries, promoting fiscal correctness (all expenses connected to the rental are fiscally traceable).
A measure which, as explained by Paolo Ghinolfi (see interview below), president of Confindustria Aniasa, has a negative impact not only on the company car market, but also damages the 65,000 companies that use cars every day for their business, and which already today bear higher costs (transport represents 6-8% of the total company costs) than their international competitors.
And so, after two years marked by negative indices (2009 and 2010) and a 2011 marked by recovery, the data relating to the first quarter of the year according to Aniasa testify how «the growth of the sector, which shows turnover (- 0.3%) and fleet in circulation (-0.2%) slightly down, but above all around 18 thousand registrations less than in the same period of 2011".
While waiting for a better economic scenario, corporate customers (over 65,000 companies and 2,400 Pa) are returning to request an extension of contracts, lengthening the period of time vehicles remain in the fleet and producing a contraction in demand.
Ghinolfi, by the way, insists on highlighting the importance of the sector for the country's economy: «Last year the turnover exceeded 5 billion euros (+2.2% on 2010); registrations which, unlike a car market in heavy losses, had grown by 12.3% (going from 269,000 to 302,000) and there was a generalized increase in the fleet in circulation (+2.4%)».
The black book of Confindustria Aniasa lists the various factors which, in recent months, have intervened to penalize the automotive, rental and corporate customers who benefit from them: from the increase in the transcription tax (for Ipt higher rental costs of around 70 million) last July, to the super tax, passing through the uncontrolled increases in insurance and fuel; without forgetting that these measures impact on companies already grappling with an unprecedented crisis, with the delayed payment of the PA and with the credit crunch that takes the breath away from many entrepreneurs. All these factors, together with the uncertainty of the economic scenarios will also affect the rental demand in 2012, both in the long and short term.
As noted by the Company Car Study Center, directed by Gian Primo Quagliano, «from 1991 to 2011 the road price of an average petrol car increased by 98.9%, less
