Row within ruling majority over tax agency chief

(supersedes previous)(ANSA) - Rome, October 26 - The small centrist Civic Choice (SC) party on Monday requested a meeting with Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and Premier Matteo Renzi to "clarify and settle" the issue of Internal Revenue Agency Director Rossella Orlandi. The request came from SC chief and Economy Undersecretary Enrico Zanetti, who told La Repubblica paper in an interview earlier that if Orlandi "continues to express so much malaise, a resignation becomes inevitable".
    SC is a junior member of the ruling coalition, along with the small New Center Right (NCD) party and the premier's center-left Democratic Party (PD), the number one party in Italy.
    Zanetti told the paper he spoke "as a member of government" and said he is certain "my position is absolutely shared" by the premier's office. Orlandi has reportedly protested the fact that the Constitutional Court ruled some Internal Revenue Agency executives had been illegitimately appointed their posts. "These executives cannot be allowed to return to their posts without a selection competition," Zanetti said. Orlandi's "mistake is that she is defending her most trusted men, not the institution", he said.
    However, the Treasury appeared to contradict Zanetti when it said in a statement later on Monday that it has "undiminished esteem" for Orlandi - thus sparking his demand for a meeting with Padoan and the premier himself.
    "We want to understand whether we are the government that is signing international treaties against offshore tax havens, that is ramping up on cross-referencing data checks, that has introduced the crime of self-money laundering...or whether we are the government that is letting tax agencies die (as Orlandi has publicly said)," Zanetti said.
    The opposition anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) - currently the second-largest party in Italy after the PD - also weighed in. "We've been saying so for ages: Italy's taxation machine is a hostage in a gang war, while the government winks its eye at large-scale tax dodgers," the M5S Lower House caucus said in a statement.