Fuel, government gives up on mobile excise duties: diesel back to 2.25 euros

The government has abandoned the plan to activate mobile excise duties on fuel, the mechanism that was supposed to automatically reduce taxation when international prices rise, absorbing part of the higher VAT revenue generated by price increases. The practical result: that share remains in State coffers instead of translating into a discount for motorists, and the price of diesel returns to 2.25 euros per liter.

The issue had been presented in recent months as one of the levers available to the executive to contain the impact of oil market fluctuations on households. Mobile excise duties in fact provide for an automatic adjustment of the fixed tax on fuel based on price trends, so as to partly offset the increase in VAT that the State collects when the pump price rises. The decision not to activate them means that the entire additional revenue remains in the public budget.

On the parallel front, that of the tax discount on fuel already used in the past for emergency measures, Deputy Minister of Economy Maurizio Leo clarified that there is not yet a definitive choice. “We are considering it, there is no decision,” the Deputy Minister stated, leaving the door open to intervention but without indicating timing or methods.

The matter fits into a broader debate on the management of revenue linked to energy prices, an area in which Italian governments have in recent years alternated temporary tax reduction measures with phases of return to ordinary taxation levels. The decision not to activate mobile excise duties, at this stage, shifts attention to a possible renewal of the discount, which however remains, in the words of the Deputy Minister himself, a hypothesis still under study and not an announced measure.

It should be noted that the news currently stems from a single source — the statements by the Deputy Minister of Economy reported in political news coverage — and there is as yet no independent confirmation from other institutional or market sources regarding the details of the decision.

The price of 2.25 euros per liter for diesel represents the most recent figure available at the time of publication: any changes related to a new intervention on the tax discount, if and when decided, will update this reference.