Italy is burdened by the 17 percent of workers who declare incomes of €35,000 gross per year or more.
Furio Oldani
The Treasury’s Finance Department recently published a list of professions and businesses at risk of tax evasion. The document was based on analyses conducted by the Revenue Agency based on the “ISA” indices, those “Synthetic Reliability Indicators” (ISAs), which are calculated—sorry for the very brief description—by comparing the declared income, expenses, and profits of each individual investigated with the industry averages in which they operate. This is a necessary investigation, considering that in Italy, 60 percent of potential taxpayers pay no tax at all and 24 percent pay the minimum necessary to cover basic services.
It means that the tax burden falls on 17 percent of workers who declare gross incomes of €35,000 or more per year. This unsustainable situation, on the one hand, justifies the Revenue Agency’s relentless efforts to combat tax evaders. On the other, it also highlights the failure of this activity, as it has continued for years without consistent success and often inappropriately. It focuses heavily on those who evade by mistake, but less so on those who do so knowingly and repeatedly.
This is confirmed by the above list of manufacturing, commercial, and service organizations at risk of tax evasion. It begins with restaurants, bars, ice cream parlors, and food retailers, followed by most other retail outlets, including pharmacies.
A questionable list
These latter, however, are not in agreement, arguing that the Revenue Agency’s methods for identifying “bad” taxpayers are flawed. True or not, but a closer look would be helpful, the list also includes hotels, bed & breakfasts, agritourism establishments, campsites, and beach resorts, eventually including accountants, artisans, and professional firms. In fact, according to published data, there is not a single business in Italy deemed tax-reliable, with the sole exception of companies operating in the agricultural sector, which are completely absent from the list.
At first glance, one might think that Italian farmers and ranchers are extremely dutiful in their duties—a sort of “wonderful thought” counterbalanced, however, by a decidedly less positive hypothesis. Could it be that, as usual, the agricultural world has been completely forgotten?
The doubt is strong, and if the second hypothesis were correct, it would also be necessary to raise one’s voice to reiterate the economic and social importance of a sector that is theoretically primary, but which for decades has been politically mistreated, ruled by individuals who are completely incompetent in the field. In this case, however, it’s best to keep a low profile. Dialogue with the Revenue Agency is difficult and dangerous, so the less one shows off, the better.
Title: Honest or Forgotten?
