Reuters
Intesa to add 2 billion to reserves from bank tax
Italy’s biggest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, on Wednesday said it would increase non-distributable reserves by 2.07 billion euros ($2.19 billion) instead of paying a one-off windfall tax, making use of an opt-out clause in the law. Reserves must increase by 2.5 times the amount that would be paid as tax, which in Intesa’s case would have been 828 million euros. Reuters reported earlier this month that Italy risked collecting next to zero from the tax as banks would struggle to justify to shareholders dishing out the cash, when they could strengthen their capital reserves instead.