Everyone wants Cashback and the State rejoices: two of the three expected results will come, but what about the third?
The Cashback program of the State, technical problems (here the official justification of PagoPA) and doubts about the funds and when we will be sure of the reimbursement apart, is proving to be a success: the total downloads of the IO app are over 9.1 million as of today’s date and just the diffusion of the app among the citizens was one of the three results that the Government wanted to obtain thanks to the Cashback.
The second result is the fight against tax evasion, resulting from the use of electronic payment instruments that are always traceable. It’s still early to say, but it’s very likely that this result will be achieved: Satispay alone, one of the apps to get cashback without SPID, has in fact already registered a growth in tracked transactions of no less than 50%. The third result that the Government aims to obtain with the Cashback program, finally, is a consequence of the diffusion of IO: the growth of the digitalization of the country.
State Cashback: what’s not working
To get the Christmas Cashback, but also future ordinary six-monthly State Cashbacks (starting on January 1, 2021), you must pay with a physical card. Payment apps (with a few exceptions, such as Satispay) and wire transfers are not currently valid. Moreover, online purchases are not valid, but only those in physical stores.
This is creating a paradox: many Italians who before the start of the state reimbursement program made many online purchases without any problem, have now returned to buy in stores with the sole purpose of paying with a card and get the cashback.
This is an effect desired by the Government, in order to help retailers brought to their knees by the forced closures for the Covid-19.
But it’s also a side effect, because in some cases there is no real help for shopkeepers but only a return to a “flesh and blood” payment of something that used to be paid online, with the only purpose of accumulating cahsback. Two examples are enlightening: Amazon vouchers and bills and taxes.
How to get Cashback from purchases on Amazon
Amazon is the e-commerce par excellence, the first place where Italians now go to shop online. But online purchases do not count towards the 10% cashback, so what do you do? Amazon gift vouchers can be purchased online on the site or in physical stores: bars, tobacconists, newsstands. There are scattered all over Italy and all you need to do is find the one closest to your home to buy a voucher, pay for it with your ATM, receive the State Cashback and then buy online on Amazon using the voucher as a form of payment.
How to get Cashback by paying taxes and bills
Behind the whole Cashback operation there is PagoPA Spa and its IO app, which has among its services offered that of being able to comfortably pay taxes and duties from home, but also fines and penalties, directly from your smartphone with one of the cards registered in the app.
But by doing this you don’t get the cashback, so what do you do? You go in person to the tobacconist or the post office and you get in line to pay taxes and fines with the ATM. In this case, the cashback comes, but where has the digitization of the country gone?