The governative program “Industry 4.0”

The National Industry Plan 4.0, presented last September 21^st in Milan by the former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda, aims to create a favorable environment for enterprises, taking into account the new phase of globalization and technological changes happening, through a set of organic measures capable of favoring investments for innovation.

The Italian Industrial sector, with all its urgencies and requests for attention, has now become a proper strategic plan in Renzi’s government.

The Calenda Plan rests on 5 pillars, let’s see them in detail:

1. The plan includes the relaunch of the Sabatini Law for the purchase of instrumental goods connected to Hi-Tech along with Super-amortization and Hyper-amortization that should make much easier the transition to digital for the Italian industrial sector. A strategic role will be played by universities as they will work closer to companies, offering them valuable knowledge and R&D skills.  The expected amortization tools will support and incentivize companies investing in new instrumental goods, both material (machinery, equipment and hardware) and immaterial ones (software and IT systems), as long as they are functional to the technological and digital transformation of the production processes.
   • With the Hyper-amortization companies will take advantage of a 250% over-valuation of the investments on new material goods, devices and technologies enabling the 4.0 transformation, both purchased or leased.
   • With the Super-amortization, instead, there will be a 140% over-valuation of investments on purchased or leased instrumental goods. Micro, small and medium Italian enterprises (PMI/SME) will be able to benefit from these two amortizations.
2. Funds will be guaranteed by the “Guarantee Fund for small and medium enterprises”  up to 80% of the total amount required for the project. It will be crucial for the loan duration to not exceed 5 years and its amount to lie between €20.000 and €2 MLN.
   That being the case, the contribution of Ministry of Economic Development shall be determined as follows:
   • equal to the value of the interest calculated on a 5 year duration financing with an amount equal to the investment
   • with an annual interest rate equal to 2,75% for the ordinary investments and 3,575% for the investments on digital technologies.

   Thanks to this Fund, the enterprise will have the concrete possibility to obtain loans without add guarantees and therefore without the costs of sureties or insurance policies. According to the latest Government surveys, over 99% of the enterprises could access the funding with the Fund coverage, without any real guarantees. The following is a list of banks and financial intermediaries belonging to Agreement Addendum.
   The R&D Tax is aimed at stimulate private investments on Research and Development, in order to improve processes and products and to guarantee the companies’ competitiveness.

3. The advantages amount to a 50% tax credit on incremental expenditures in R&D, recognized up to an annual maximum of 20 MLN for each beneficiary. All expenses in research are eligible for this aid as the costs for highly qualified technicians, research contracts with universities research organizations and all laboratory tools and equipment. Besides, a tax deduction up to 30% is provided for investments up to € 1 MLN and innovative SME’s.
4. Patent Box will reduce taxation on incomes from intellectual properties, industrial patents, trademarks, and also from processes, formulas and information related to expertise acquired in the industrial or scientific field.
   The Patent Box also aims to make the Italian market more attractive for long term investments, both national and from abroad, while safeguarding the Italian taxable amount. Will be incentivized the relocation in Italy of intellectual properties, currently held abroad  and the investment on research and development activities.These measures on investments for enterprises (depreciation, tax credit, Sabatini) are already operating, not needing any further implementing regulations by the Government. To access them is very easy, it can be done while preparing financial statements with one’s accountant and through self-certification.
5. Creation of competence centers, which basically are innovation hubs, that will developed around universities. They will have the goal to create synergies between universities and private players.

The Industry Plan 4.0 has the ultimate goal of improving the competitiveness of the entire production system of our Country, facilitating the access to credit for enterprises and encouraging investments on research, technical development and innovation.

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