Italy’s 1970s Tax Reform and Its Waning Legacy

Italy, fifty years ago, passed a bunch of bills which overhauled its tax system. Thereafter, the old taxes, which had survived for about a century, were replaced by a set of ‘modern’ ones. The process was prompted by a law of delegation, which laid down the cornerstones of the tax reform to come: its principles – such as personality, progressivity, differentiation, simplification, and so on – were meant to steer the Country towards a new era of social justice and economic development. Things, regrettably, went otherwise. With the important exception of Value Added Tax (VAT), whose implementation has always been dependent on European law, the guidelines of the 1970s Tax Reform were superseded in various ways, as summarized below. According to the law of delegation, the Italian tax jurisdiction had to stick to the personal progressive income tax (PIT): this notwithstanding, it soon reverted to the old schedular approach. In regard of corporate profits, the many attempts to deal with double taxation have been eventually dismissed. The idea of taxing income differently, whether earned or unearned, has been abandoned, or rather subverted, to the detriment of labour income. Tax returns of small businesses and self-employed are hardly likely to be controlled by the tax authority. Italy, there are few doubts about that, seems to be in desperate need of a new tax reform.