Italy: The “5 x mille” surprise

Italian taxpayers have waited for more than a year to find out which organisations will benefit from 2006's ?5 x mille'. The 5 x mille (five per thousand) is a clause that was added to the financial law in 2005, and therefore applied to the 2006 tax year, enabling taxpayers to give 0.5% of their income tax to a third sector organisation of their choice. At last the lists with the names of all the recipient organisations have been published revealing a surprising fact: 60% of taxpayers in 2006 chose to donate their 5 x mille towards social goals. This exceeds the figures for the 8 x mille (0.8%), which is the percentage that can be awarded to the Catholic Church, to other religious confessions or to the State. An impressive achievement considering that it was the law's pilot year.

Fifteen million Italians chose to donate their 5 x mille to third sector organisations
According to Giuseppe De Rita, president of the Censis social study and research institute, there are two reasons for the 5 x mille's success: ?the first – he says – is that there was much talk about the 5 x mille so that it became popular very quickly. The second reason is that associations with large numbers of members played on the fact that their members would support them, which was proved by the success of large associations such as Airc and the Veronesi Foundation?.

The lists also revealed that 6,306 organisations were excluded from the original 28,678 organisations that had hoped to benefit from the 5 x mille law. The reasons behind their exclusion have not yet been made public as each organisation will all receive a private explanatory letter which they may appeal to within 10 days. However, many were surprised to discover that among those excluded were some of the most well known Italian associations such as Ail ? The Italian Association against Leukaemia, Lymphomas and Myelomas, Associazione Trenta Ore per la Vita and Adiconsum.

The largest number of donations (60%) went to non-profit organisations, while scientific research, medical research and county councils each received about 13% of total donations.

Support to research and development
Fifteen million Italians chose to donate their 5 x mille to third sector organisations. The most popular non-profit organisation was Unicef with 235,311 donations, while Acli (the Italian association of Christian Workers) came a close second with 228,829. ?These funds will be used to strengthen our network, resources are especially needed for training and capacity building? said Andrea Oliviero, Acli's president ?we also hope to renovate our structures, and to improve our international aid programmes?. The same success was not encountered by Arci, that like Acli is one of the most important socially minded associations in Italy, as they were the preferred choice of only 3,700 people. Paolo Beni, Arci's president, explains that the poor result was really their own fault as they had not believed in the full potential of the 5 x mille: ?we certainly underestimated the 5 x mille thinking that it was not something that actually concerned us, we thought that County Councils rather than associations would be chosen? explained Beni.

The Italian association for cancer research, Airc, was by far the overall winner with 727,868 taxpayer preferences. Maurizio Savi, Airc's general manager, tells us that the reasons can be found in the statistics: one out of every four Italians has cancer at some point in their lives, ?Italians have understood that research is the key to reaching out to all? he says.

Other favourites were Anpas, Italy's national public assistance association and ?queen' of all volunteer associations in Italy with 100 thousand volunteers and 400 thousand members; Auser, a volunteer association that provides services for the elderly; and Emergency, the well know Italian NGO that supports civilian war victims worldwide that recently featured in the news over the kidnapping in Afghanistan of the Italian journalist Gabriele Mastrogiacomo.

A new challenge
The 2006 financial law allowed the possibility of donating one's 5 x mille to County Councils (in the 2007 law this no longer holds). Rome is at the head of this top ten, with more than 48 thousand choices, followed by Milan, Rome, Turin and Florence.

?The meaning behind these statistics is clear to all of us ? said Ferruccio De Bortoli, the director of Confindustria's newspaper ? the 5 x mille has touched a chord in Italian society and it cannot be viewed as a marginal phenomenon. These lists show that Italians want to have the power to choose where their income tax contributions end up. I believe that the more transparent an organisation's accounts are and the more likely the public is to choose them as beneficiaries?.

Vita's editorial director believes that these results for the 2006 5 x mille are a demonstration of democracy in it's truest form: ?no barriers were posed between the ?candidates' and the public who made their choice after having seen them in action. The 5 x mille is in many ways like the result of an election, and the majority has voted for a freer more equitable Italy? writes Giuseppe Frangi.

It now must be seen what the results for the 2007 5 x mille will show. There have been a number of significant amendmants to the 2005 financial law. County Councils will no longer be able to benefit from taxpayers 5 x mille, meaning that the beneficiaries will be non-profit organisations, volunteer and social assistance associations and scientific, medical and University research institutions. Another important condition imposed by the government has been to put a roof on the amount that will actually be donated to the beneficiaries. The sum set for this roof is 250 million euros, a sum that will be in all likelyhood surpassed by 5 x mille donations. If it is, then only a fraction of the 0.05% will actually reach the organisations chosen by taxpayers.

In this regard, Vita Magazine is leading a capaign to "lift the roof" of the 5 x mille to which many organisations have already adheared to – to join the campaign visit: 5 per mille: alziamo il tetto!