(Bloomberg) -- Intesa Sanpaolo SpA Chief Executive Officer Carlo Messina said there are ways for firms to help Italy fix its finances that don’t have a negative impact on bottom lines.
“There could be some ways in which it is possible to make a contribution to this situation of the public debt not having an impact on the economic figures of the company,” Messina said at Bloomberg’s Future of Finance event in Milan on Thursday. He said there’s a possibility “to give cash flow to the public sector.”
The comments come just after Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti announced in an interview pre-recorded for the same event that he wants to raise money from industries that have benefited disproportionately from macroeconomic and global events in recent years.
“We will be approving a budget that will require sacrifices from everyone, which means taxing extra profits,” Giorgetti said in the interview. He didn’t provide details.
The Italian bank lobby is reviewing potential measures that wouldn’t hurt bank earnings, it has said. An upfront payment of withholding tax due by clients or the postponement of deferred tax assets are among them, Bloomberg has reported.
“As an Italian, it is very important that this country will have a significant reduction of the public debt and an improvement of the financial condition of our country,” Messina said at the event on Thursday. “On the other side, as CEO of a bank, I have to say that Intesa Sanpaolo today is the top taxpayer in Italy.”
--With assistance from Flavia Rotondi.
(Updates with bank lobby review in fifth paragraph.)
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