Lombardy dominates, Puglia struggles. This is a summary of the situation relating to taxpayers’ income in Italy, based on the data released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance relating to the 2022 tax year.
The analysis shows that the number of taxpayers in Italy is around 42 million (the data concerns the tax returns of natural persons – Irpef, ed.), with an increase – compared to the previous year – of 1.3%. The total declared income amounts to over 970 billion euros per year (58 billion more than in 2021) for an average value of 23,650 euros.
The analysis of the individual regions offers us yet another snapshot of the gap between North and South. There are eleven autonomous regions/provinces with an average annual income higher than the national figure, and they are all from the north, with the exception of Lazio, on which the data for Roma Capitale has a strong impact. Lombardy is the region with the highest overall average income (27,886 euros), followed by the autonomous province of Trento (27,229) and Emilia Romagna. No region in the South can boast an average income higher than the national one. The first southern region is Campania, in sixteenth position with an average income of 19,442 euros. Sicily follows. For Puglia there is a sad eighteenth place with an overall average income of just over 18,500 euros, ahead of only three regions (Basilicata, Molise and last place Calabria).
Numbers that say a lot, also because Puglia is the ninth region in Italy in terms of the number of taxpayers who have declared an income (over 2.5 million) for a total amount of 47.3 billion. Which highlights a prevalence of lower incomes. To be clear, Tuscany, in which declarations were slightly higher than Puglia, boasts an average income of 24,307 euros and a total of around 66 billion, almost 20 more than Puglia.
PROVINCE OF FOGGIA
In the province of Foggia the total income is just over 6.4 billion (6,430,691,284) out of a total of 377,677 declarations. The overall average income is 17 thousand euros. There are almost 210 thousand declarations from employed workers, just over 132 thousand pension incomes, the figure relating to self-employed workers does not exceed 3800. The average values of the first two types of income are similar. For both employees and pensioners, the overall average income stands at 16 thousand euros (far from the national average). The figure rises for self-employed workers for whom the average income is 45,600 euros, a figure – the latter – which is however significantly lower than the national average which exceeds 64,600 euros.
In Foggia city, out of a total of 91548 declarations, an overall income of 1.87 billion was recorded, for an average annual income of 20,409 euros, the highest provincial figure ahead of San Giovanni Rotondo (20,333), Tremiti Islands (18641 ) and Manfredonia (18049). The Siponto municipality has the second highest overall income (593 million), followed by San Severo and Cerignola. In the municipality of Antino, the overall income is over 100 million lower than that of Manfredonia, despite an almost identical number of declarations. Which leads to a net drop in the overall average income.
As regards the income brackets, just under 9 thousand are the income declarations from 55 thousand euros and above.
Overall, it emerges that over a third of the declarations do not exceed 10 thousand euros in total annual income. 25% declare between 15 thousand and 26 thousand euros. The third most common income bracket is the one ranging from 26 thousand to 55 thousand euros. 1% declared between 75 thousand and 120 thousand.
