The Industry 4.0 Plan is changing

The draft budget law, presented to the Senate on November 2nd, 2019, contains the State’s forecast budget for the financial year 2020, and the multi-annual budget for the 2020-2022 three-year period. Following approval by the Senate, the measure was approved by the Chamber of Deputies without amendments and became effective on January 1, 2020.
In detail, the opportunity was envisaged to reorganize the fiscal measures of the Industry 4.0 Plan (which this year is called Transition 4.0) on a multi-year planning basis, through the transformation of hyper and super amortization into tax credit with increasing intensity, potentially able (according to government estimates) to broaden by up to 40% the audience of beneficiary companies.
Instead of extending hyper and super amortization to 2020, a new tax credit for investments in new capital equipment has been introduced, which operates at a different rate depending on the type of assets involved in the investment, including intangible assets functional to technological transformation according to the Industry 4.0 model.
The same law also introduced, for the year 2020, a new tax credit for ecological transition, 4.0 technological innovation and other innovative activities to support the competitiveness of companies, replacing the previous tax credit for research and development. The new provision also supports activities such as innovative design and aesthetic creation for the Made in Italy sectors.
At the same time, the 4.0 training tax credit has been extended to 2020, reshaping the maximum annual limits of the credit and eliminating the obligation to expressly regulate the implementation of training activities through collective corporate or territorial agreements.