With 281 people declaring an average income just over 97 thousand euros per year, Portofino is the Italian municipality that in 2023 ends up at the top of the list of the richest in Italy. In last place is a small municipality in the province of Como, Carvagna, where only 87 taxpayers, out of 172 inhabitants, presented tax forms, declaring an average income of just 7,402 euros. But it is an exception for Lombardy, given that from the data on 2023 Irpef declarations it stands out as the richest region in Italy, unlike Calabria which remains the poorest.
The tax statistics relating to Irpef, published as every year by the MEF Finance Department, portray an Italy split in half. In total, in 2023 there were around 42 million declarations (+1.3% compared to 2022) and the average income rose to 23,650 euros, an increase of 4.9% compared to the average income declared the previous year. The territorial analysis shows that the region with the highest average income is Lombardy (27,890 euros), followed by the autonomous province of Bolzano (27,230 euros), while Calabria is the one with the lowest income (17,160 euros). “There persists a significant distance between the average income of the central-northern regions and that of the southern regions and the islands”, given that in Sicily it stops at 18 thousand euros and in Sardinia at 19 thousand, underlines the Mef.
Looking at the municipalities, the situation is more varied. The ranking of the 30 richest, led by Portofino which far surpasses everyone with an average income of almost 100 thousand euros, is followed by Lajatico, in the province of Pisa, where 965 taxpayers declare an average of 56 thousand euros per year. Third place goes to Basiglio (Milan), with 53 thousand euros. Of the 30, 16 are Lombard municipalities (Milan is in thirteenth place with 37 thousand euros) and 10 are Piedmontese (but Turin is not there, placed only in 363rd place with 27 thousand euros of income). Comparing the capitals, Bologna is in 119th place with 29 thousand euros, Rome in 124th place with an income of 28,900 euros, Florence in 220th place with 27 thousand, Venice in place number 800 with 24 thousand euros, Naples in number 1,985 with 22,700, Palermo in 2,400 with 22 thousand. If you look at the ranking from below, in the top thirty positions of the poorest municipalities, 10 are from Calabria and 4 from Molise.
The data from the 2023 declarations also describe the origin of Italians’ income: income from employment and pensions represents approximately 83% of the total declared income, and that the highest average income is that from self-employment, equal to 64,670 euros, while the average income declared by entrepreneurs (owners of individual businesses) is equal to 27,420 euros. Employees declare an average of 22,280 euros and pensioners 19,750 euros.
It is also possible to have a fairly clear picture of the distribution of the tax burden, i.e. how much it weighs on the different income brackets which last year were reduced from five to four. The net tax declared by 32.4 million subjects, for a value of 5,380 euros per person, was 174.2 billion euros, (+1.9% compared to the previous year). The distribution of the tax by income class shows that taxpayers with incomes up to 35,000 euros (80% of the total) declare 37% of the total net tax, while the remaining 63% is declared by taxpayers with incomes above 35,000 euros (20% of the total taxpayers). The latter, essentially, is the bracket on which taxation weighs most, given that 20% of taxpayers pay 63% of the tax. Less affected are those with a total income greater than 300,000 euros (0.2% of taxpayers), who declare 7.8% of the total net tax (in 2021 it was 6.7%).
The income map
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