Bonus Baby, a Contribution of 1000 Euros When It Becomes a Fine of 4000 [Part 1]

Bonus baby, a contribution of 1000 euros when it becomes a fine of 4000 [Part 1]

“Dear … Congratulations for your arrival! This is certainly the first letter is addressed to you. He is chairman of the board to write and probably bring the first question of your life: you know that the new budget law gives you a bonus of $ 1000? “. With this letter, the sender Silvio Berlusconi, began the tortuous path of the bonus babies dated 2005-2006. A tangled affair between bureaucracy, taxes and the poor communication by the Public Administration. Now everything is solved with only partial damage to families, but this story is worth telling surreal, where he gives with one hand with the other state and asks back.

To tell it necessary to step back and return to six years ago. The government, with Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti, the Finance launches a bonus of 1000 euros for each newborn. A letter sent home invites you to come in the mail, self-certify their income and withdraw money. And it is on self-arising problems. The fact speaks loosely attached to the letter, as a requirement of “total income” does not exceed 50 000 euros. If you do not specify gross or net. Error induced by the formula unclear, eight thousand families respond to the invitation of Prime Minister believed to be eligible. Six years later, those who had no right to ask for the bonus, comes the request to return the $ 1000 and pay a fine of 3000 euros.

“I never asked for anything, but the letter had come home,” says Elena Fini, who has four children. He lives in the province of Modena and a letter to the weekly time Carpi (published in July 2011) said, among the first, the byzantine initiative of Prime Minister, and was one of the first indicators of problems that would then touched other families . “On July 4 I received a communication from the State Accounting Office,” he continues. A letter peremptory in tone and content: it comes to collecting “illegal” bonus babies, and that he had “signed and used false self,” and adds, “we inform you that all of the above, will be made a special report to the prosecutor the Republic. ” The State takes back the $ 1000 bonus and 3000 euro fine. “The letter made me feel like a criminal. Before I got terrified and then I responded, “says Elena Fini.

The political case after complaints
The outburst was noticed by Manuela Ghizzoni, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Democratic Party of Modena, who explains: “The mode of letterheads to newborns resulted in a certain chaos. People with income, what will they bring home. For the haste to inform families of this giving, a few weeks before the vote, the government intervened with a letter signed by Mr Berlusconi. ” But in total income was also included in the cadastral income. “Now families are terrorized by the return of Euro 1000 ‘continues the Parliamentary Assembly of the Democratic Party” but also by the impact in criminal matters, particularly serious for civil servants. “

The approximately 8 000 families to whom the letter has come spend weeks groping in the dark. And end up in a vicious circle of phone calls and email. ‘I will have written something like 1000 emails, I called everywhere in the town I was advised to appeal to the ombudsman. In turn, they told me to go to the Regional Accounting Office of the State, that is, by whom I had sent the letter, “continued Fini, disconsolate. The same bewilderment that Papalini says Louis, who turned to Altroconsumo, where there are numerous requests for information and help you get “I had to return $ 1000 in 10 days in July,” he says. “To me, why should I bother to appeal the letter of Accounting? If I were a lawyer or other just on principle I would certainly challenged, “says bitterly Papalini