The Federcontribuenti was reached by the request for help from Mrs. Annamaria Berardi of Pescara. The lady is fighting against two serious forms of cancer, one marrow and one bone, and against Equitalia, which orders payment of around 14,000 euros within 20 days, otherwise, she will take the car and then everything else, including the house.
Mrs. Berardi was, before the disease made it impossible for her to work, a medical informant, with a degree in scientific information and was employed in two pharmaceutical companies.
The first company does not hire her with a chemical contract as the law would like, but makes her open a VAT number, classifying her as a freelance professional with commissions; this is what our Italian researchers suffer. When you have a VAT number you have to pay taxes and if whoever should pay your salary doesn't pay you, as in the case of the lady, you can't pay them and you become a debtor. On July 4, 2004, considering that the pharmaceutical company continued not to pay her back wages, which amounted to around 8,000 euros, she resigned, losing wages and severance pay, as the law says. He would like to initiate legal proceedings against this company, but soon discovers his first tumor. In 2007 she was hired in another pharmaceutical company in Trento and on an annual basis. Too weak, especially due to the 26 cycles of chemotherapy she is forced to undergo, she begins to stay at home and the second company tells her that she will stay on the minimum wage. That's not enough, he discovers a speck on his arm and trusts the care of a clinic affiliated with the Abruzzo Region that gets the wrong treatment and three operations; from the speck we arrive at the amputation of the limb which took place at the Rizzoli in Bologna and risking losing his life with 6 bags of blood in the very long 15 hours of intervention. Equitalia knows all this, it has all the medical documentation, yet it is not enough for it and demands, demands, and intimates foreclosures and administrative stops. Mrs. Berardi is alone and lives on a disability pension with her elderly parents. He will have to re-operate in days, he has asked his bank to suspend the loan, as required by law, due to obvious economic problems. First of all, Federcontribuenti will have an expert report done on the tax bills and will start all the political and legal processes necessary to give the lady, at least, a minimum of serenity and the dutiful possibility of being treated without also suffering Equitalia's threats. «I wonder if Equitalia will deem it appropriate to suspend and prescribe the lady's debt situation, who knows when the government will decide that the time has come to intervene clearly and firmly against Equitalia. Who knows when we will start the reforms». Prosecuting Italian citizens in this way is a crime as well as an infinite shame. There is no doubt that if taxpayers were put in a position to make a living from their work with fair wages and taxes, they would pay without a murmur. Instead, people often escape because they are forced, because otherwise they won't eat or can't be treated.
Another problem that the Federcontribuenti points out on the case. The Abruzzo Region would not be paying for the centers in which the
