Italy

Wealth taxes have played a minor role in the tax systems of the OECD bloc: they have declined from about 7.9% of total tax revenues in the mid-1960s to about…

The bridge between Sicily and the Italian mainland is probably the longest living project in the world. According to some historians, it dates back to the Romans. The idea had…

WP 2023-02. Executive Summary We designed a Survey Experiment (SE) to study the attitudes of the Italians towards wealth, income and consumptions taxes. In particular, we interviewed a sample of…

According to The Economist, these turbulent times have completed the transformation of Britain into a new country, characterized by political instability and low growth, and subordinated to financial markets. Britaly…

Italy’s general elections took place on September the 25th. As expected, the centre-right coalition got the majority in both Houses and its leader, Giorgia Meloni, who is also the leader…

Towards the end of August, every year investors focus on the Jackson Hole conference of the central banking global elite. Given widespread acceptance among central bankers that non-temporary inflation is…

WP 2022-05. Executive Summary Italy is a country marked by strong social and economic inequality among its regions. This inequality not only has deep secular roots, but seems to insistently…

As emphasized in June, the law establishing the Italian universal-minimum-income programme (RdC) also puts the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies — the same authority that advocated its adoption —…

By Nicolas Lecaussin

The French government recently announced the creation of 100 000 green jobs over the next three years. The goal is of course to stem rising unemployment. However, the tangible results of creating green jobs in several countries, as well as the real costs of these jobs, should have given food for thought before taking action.

In France, an IREF study (“Les mythes des emplois verts”) published in early 2011 showed that the term is ambiguous and calculated the real cost of a green job, based on official reports. The definition of green jobs is rather vague, although there is an official handbook on green growth (“Focus on 50 professions for green growth”). Among these, most already exist (gardeners, sewermen, cleaners, geologists …). Others seem to come straight out of a vaudeville: nature discovery guide, eco-museum guide, eco-interpreter, nature guide…

This paper is excerpted from the forthcoming “IREF’s Yearbook on Taxation” 2012

On July 6 the Berlusconi government passed a first package of mandating modest immediate cuts in the expenditure and similarly modest immediate increases in tax revenue to address concerns on the capacity of Italy to serve its huge public debt. Because this was not enough to reassure markets, the government had to pass a second, more substantial, package of fiscal measures on August 13. Despite those packages and the drafting of a constitutional amendment requiring balanced budgets, Berlusconi’s government had to go off the stage and the new Monti’s team immediately introduced a third package. As a result, Italy probably never experienced since the tax reform of the 1970’s such a huge number of changes in its tax system. Changes refer both to the introduction of new taxes and to modification of tax rates and of the tax base of the present taxes.