Our Financial Administration has 190 databases digitally connected to each other. They are archives that collect an incredible amount of tax information which, if appropriately cross-referenced, could determine with great precision the tax loyalty of each of the 3.8 million Venetian taxpayers. An issue, obviously, that concerns all Italian taxpayers.
Despite this vast network of data, the scale of tax evasion in Italy remains high, amounting to around 84 billion euros per year, of which 6.5 billion are attributable to the Venetians. This raises a provocative question, posed byCGIA research office: if the tax authorities have such a detailed tax register, why is it still so difficult to identify those who do not pay taxes?
If the Financial Administration has 190 potential files for each taxpayer, capable of accurately photographing each individual’s earning capacity, consumption and level of wealth, it should not be difficult to track down the tax evaders. However, the problem arises when tax evasion occurs outside of legal channels, rendering even the most detailed databases ineffective.
In fact, if every year evaders steal almost 84 billion euros from the Italian tax authorities and the Financial Administration only recovers around twenty of them, it is clear that we know a lot about who is known to the tax authorities, but we are groping in the dark regarding those who operate in the shadows.
Databases are not only used to combat tax evasion. They are also essential tools for developing complex economic and statistical analyses, estimating the effects of fiscal policies in an increasingly interconnected context. However, tax evasion remains one of the country’s main problems, and these tools should be fundamental to building a more fair and equitable tax system.
According to an estimate of Ministry of Economy and Financetax and contribution evasion in Italy amounted to 83.6 billion euros in 2021. In absolute terms, the most populated regions and with a greater concentration of economic activities, such as Lombardy (13.6 billion euros in lost revenue), the Lazio (9.1 billion), the Campania (7.8 billion) and the Veneto (6.5 billion), are those most affected by tax evasion. However, the propensity to evade is higher in the Southern regions. In Calabria, it is at 18.4%, in Campania at 17.2%, in Puglia at 16.8% and in Sicily at 16.5%. On the contrary, the regions most faithful to taxation are Veneto (9.5%), Emilia Romagna (9.4%), Friuli Venezia Giulia (9%), the Autonomous Province of Trento (8.6%) , Lombardy (8%) and the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (7.7%). The national average is 11.2%.
In Italy there are 43.3 million taxpayers, of which over 42 million are natural persons and 1.3 million legal persons. Among the 107 Italian provinces monitored by the CGIA, Rome has the highest number of Irpef taxpayers (2.9 million), followed by Milan (2.4 million), Turin and Naples (1.6 million each). The first province of Veneto is Verona with 711,456 Irpef taxpayers, followed by Padua with 700,141, Treviso with 665,416 and Vicenza with 650,693.
