The director of the Revenue Agency Ernesto Maria Ruffini is leaving his post . He announced it this morning in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
"I'm not taking sides - he says, commenting on the hypothesis of a role as 'unifier' of the centrist area of the opposition - but I claim the right to speak. I read that speaking about the common good would be a choice of sides. And that therefore I should keep quiet or leave the position. There was even a caricatured description of the role of Director of the Agency, as if fighting tax evasion were a partisan choice and even something to be ashamed of ."
"I am resigning because it is the only way to remain myself. The climate has changed, on Wednesday I notified Minister Giorgetti", Ruffini declares.
"Sometimes," he explains to justify his decision, " it almost seems that fighting tax evaders is a crime and that we worry more about this than about hospitals that close, schools that don't have funds or the lack of services because resources are insufficient . I have never seen public officials being accused of extorting a state bribe. Or hearing that the Revenue Agency is holding families hostage, as if it were a kidnapper. I have kept quiet until now, out of a sense of state. But be careful: if the tax system itself is demonized, it hits the heart of the State; especially since the level of taxation is decided by the legislator, not the Agency. Personally, I have always thought that it is tax evaders who harm honest citizens."
(Online Union)
