How a home-improvement subsidy is wrecking Italy’s public finances

JUST THINKING about it “gives me a stomach ache”, said Italy’s finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti. He was referring to a home-improvements subsidy that has turned into the fiscal equivalent of King Kong: a monster running amok, wreaking havoc on the country’s seldom-robust public accounts. On April 9th Mr Giorgetti revealed that claims of the subsidy, known as the “superbonus”, made in the four years that the scheme has been running, together with claims of another that offsets the cost of renovating façades, would eventually drain the treasury of €219bn ($233bn). That is almost 10% of Italy’s GDP last year. How on earth did things get to this point?