Italy’s legions of mobile phone users are furious that they may be taxed for sending text messages under a proposal aimed at funding tax cuts, reports The Independent.

The Premier, Silvio Berlusconi, is considering a one euro cent (0.6p) levy on the millions of SMS messages pinging across the networks every day to pay for promised tax cuts to companies and employees over the next two year, according to a report in the daily Corriere della Sera .

About 270 billion messages were sent in Italy last year, so the government could hope to raise €270m (£188m).

The proposal comes amid mounting pressure on Mr Berlusconi to make good on his year-old pledge of lower taxes. Italy’s chronic financial problems had made that impossible until now.”