Italy's Stability Law launched

A budget bill proposed by the Italian government called the 'Stability Law' was launched with revisions on Tuesday following its approval by the cabinet. One measure within the bill narrowing permits given to public employees who care for disabled relatives was removed. However, a retroactive reduction of tax deductions, making it necessary for taxpayers or tax-paying entities to cough up payments on past filings, remained within the bill. The government said that a proposal for the reorganization of all public research institution funding will be announced by January 31, 2013. The bill calls for increasing the VAT by 1% starting in the second half of 2013 for the VAT sales bracket of 21% and 10%. The introduction of a tax on financial investment transactions, known as the Tobin Tax, predicted to bring in 1.1 billion euros, remains in the bill. The Tobin Tax is also expected to reduce the volume of stock and derivatives transactions by 30% and 80% respectively. Italian Premier Mario Monti has stressed that the budget measures contained in the so-called Stability Law do not amount to another austerity package like the tax hikes and spending cuts his emergency government passed last year to put Italy on course to balancing its budget in structural terms next year.