WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2649/97 by Roberto MEZZAROMA to the Commission. Tax harmonization
Date: 1997-09-01
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: Italy, building industry, economic recession, indirect tax, property market, real estate business, real property, tax harmonisation

C 117/38

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

16. 4. 98

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-2648/97 and E-2668/97
given by Mr Bangemann on behalf of the Commission

(8 October 1997)

Steroids have been available for decades. They are powerful medicaments that have proved their effectiveness in
various  therapeutic  applications.  However,  in  certain  situations  they  may  have  serious  undesirable  effects.
Therefore their prescription must follow the well known human-medicine principle of the balance between the
advantage and risk deriving from the administration of a given medicament.

All those medicaments containing steroids currently on the market have been authorised by the Member States
involved. They should, under the Community law in force, (a) acquire all of the information needed in order to
monitor those medicaments and in particular that concerning any undesirable effects they may have on human
beings and (b) assess that information at scientific level by linking it to the consumption of steroids and taking
account of the › frequently-observed › cases of incorrect use and serious abuse of those medicaments.

Where, in the light of the pharmacological-monitoring information thus received a Member States feels that it
should  amend,  suspend  or  withdraw  the  marketing  authorisation  for  a  medicament  it  is  then  required
immediately  to  inform  the  European  Agency  for  the  Evaluation  of  Medicinal  Products.  In  addition  that
Member State has the option, where it feels this to be justified, of laying the matter before the Agency before any
decision is taken. So far neither of those two procedures has yet been initiated in the case of medicinal steroids.

(98/C 117/49)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2649/97

by Roberto Mezzaroma (UPE) to the Commission

(1 September 1997)

Subject: Tax harmonization

The Commission is requested to turn its attention to the serious problem faced by construction companies in
connection with the indirect taxation levied via the Communal Tax on Immovable Property (the ICI) in Italy.

As  you  may  know,  since  1993  this  tax  has  been  levied  (cid:145)indiscriminately(cid:146)  on  buildings,  building  land  and
agricultural land, whoever the owner might be, at a rate varying between 4 and 7 per thousand, calculated by
reference to the cadastral value plus 10% in the case of buildings, or the market value in the case of building land.

The inequality to which attention is drawn is the fact that the building industry, which is already suffering the
effects of a housing market that has been in the doldrums since 1992, is now liable to pay tax both on the finished
product (buildings) and the raw material (building land), which is not the case in any other sector of industry.

So  the  ICI,  in  addition  to  having  contributed  to  the  contraction  of  the  housing  market,  has  considerably
aggravated the already precarious financial situation of the building industry in that firms have to pay tax on
unsold or yet to be constructed buildings as well as bearing the cost of the financial charges involved.

A further contradiction and inconsistency arises from the fact that, since 1 January 1993, the ICI has replaced
both  the  ILOR  (local  income  tax)  and  the  INVIM  (communal  tax  on  increases  in  the  value  of  immovable
property), which were accordingly abolished, and hence it was supposed to operate to the taxpayer(cid:146)s advantage.

This measure did not, however, provide any relief for the building industry, for the following reasons. ILOR was
not  payable  by  construction  companies  because  immovable  property  constituted  the  goods  which  it  was  the
business of such firms to produce and trade in, and so the firms were not liable to pay tax on the basis of the
cadastral value of such property but on the income it generated.

The ICI, however, amounts to an annual charge on the ownership of immovable property, which, while it may
very well be an indicator of fiscal capacity in the case of a private citizen, is the exact opposite in the case of a
building company.

What  action  does  the  Commission  intend  to  take  to  resolve  this  problem,  which  seriously  affects  many
construction companies and undoubtedly results in a large number of bankruptcies and significant job losses, and
also means that the question of fiscal harmonization will not yet have been resolved for all countries including
Italy, which is seriously handicapped by problems of this nature, by the date set for the introduction of the single
currency?