Sassari, we fight for the Free Zone in Sardinia

The Free Zone, this unknown.

Yesterday in Sassari, in the local police headquarters, a conference on the legislative decree of the European community of 1998 which, as stated in the decree, provides for "the creation of free zones in Sardinia in the ports of Cagliari, Olbia, Oristano, Porto Torres, Portovesme and Arbatax, as well as in other ports and industrial areas functionally connected or connectable to them".

«This means - explains Maria Rosaria Randaccio, a retired tax manager at the meeting - that Sardinian residents have the right to privileged taxation, or rather to exemption from the payment of any tax».

Goodbye therefore VAT, IMU, or taxes on salaries or pensions, or the payments of social security contributions by the entrepreneur for his employees.

«We take advantage of the free zones - Randaccio further underlines - because we are a disadvantaged island, affected by depopulation, which cannot exercise free competition. This is why we fall into a duty-free territory."

Yet this right, the other speakers, the lawyer Marco Caria and the tax expert Rossana Madeddu also report, has been disregarded for a quarter of a century "because we thought it all depended on politics, only to discover that politicians have nothing to do with it". In fact, the European law rules which, in the hierarchical order of the sources of law, is superior to that of the member states, including the Italian one. But few are aware of the topic, including accountants.

"We have given all the legal references on the internet - they declare - to cancel the tax bills".

There would also be other pressures to prevent the implementation of free zones. «Italy has enemies - concludes Randaccio - those who have free ports in the Atlantic Ocean, Rotterdam, Aversa, Hamburg. If we activated ours we would lose most of the containers arriving from Suez."

A year ago, June 2022, politics also took action with an agenda from the Brothers of Italy, approved by the then Draghi government, to give "full implementation" of the free zones.