Between the evasion of the Imu-Tasi, the Tari and the non-payment of water bills, the Italians unduly "save" 7,6 billion per year.
To pay the bill are the municipalities and companies that deal with the management of urban waste and / or provide the water service, often controlled by the same municipal administrations where they operate.
To say it is the Studies Office of CGIA which estimated the evasion and non-payment of Italians after having processed the latest available data from the Ministry of the Interior (for Imu-Tasi), REF Ricerche Laboratory, CRIF Ratings (for Tari) and Utilitatis (for water). Report the coordinator of the CGIA Studies Office, Paolo Zabeo:
"If a large part of these missed payments were recovered, most likely there would be the possibility of lowering local taxes and water charges at all. Especially in the South, which has an incidence on the total non-payment equal to 40 per cent: 10,5 points more than the average recorded in the Center and 11 more than in the North ”.
Despite the evasion, the block of increases in local taxes that occurred between the 2015-2018 and the cut to the transfers of the central State, the Mayors have however found a way to compensate, at least in part, these lost revenues by acting on local tariffs.
“With the stop to the local tax increases occurred in the past years - declares the Secretary of the CGIA Renato Mason - many administrators have however continued to feed their income by increasing the water bills, the fees of kindergartens, canteens and bus tickets . And all this, without weighing on the general tax burden, given that the price increases, unlike the increases in local taxes, do not contribute to burdening our fiscal pressure, even if in an equally annoying way they contribute to lighten the wallets of all of us " .
With the budget law 2020 things are destined to change. The maneuver, in fact, provides for the "Reform of the collection of local entities" which will allow local administrations to recover the missed payments without waiting for the time of registration in the role of the debt or preparation of the injunction.
"In essence - affirms the researcher of the Andrea Vavolo Research Department - from 1 in January 2020 the Mayors will need only one act, rather than two, namely the assessment and the injunction, to arrive at the extreme solution: forced execution" .
We talk about the single assessment that - like what is already valid for the Revenue Agency - Collection at the level of tax authorities - contains in itself all the elements of title suitable also for the attachment of the current account or the fifth of the salary .
Strong North-South divide
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior referring to the 2016 (last year available), compared to 22,1 billions of total revenues, the estimate of the Imu-Tasi evasion amounts to 5,1 billion, of which 1,87 billions are attributable to the owners of properties in the regions of the North, 1,81 billion, those in the South and 1,4 billion in those in the Center. As for the propensity to evasion (or propensity to the tax gap), the figure for Calabria stands at 43,2 per cent, that of Campania at 38,5 per cent and that of Sicily at 36,6 per cent. The most virtuous regions, instead, are Piedmont (tax gap at 21,7 per cent), Lombardy (20,6 per cent), Liguria (18,3 per cent) and Emilia Romagna (tax gap at 17,8 per cent) which is the region where the propensity to evasion is the lowest ever.
Also with regard to the estimate of tax evasion, on the other hand, the territorial differences are very evident. According to the estimates emerged from the data of the REF Research Laboratory and CRIF Ratings, on 9 billions of total revenues recorded in the 2018, the non-collection at the national level was 2,1 billion, of which just over 1 billion for the citizens / Southern enterprises, 817 million to those of the Center and 286 million to those of the North. At regional level there is the lack of collection per inhabitant of Lazio equal to 121,8 euro. Sicily followed with 77,2 euro per inhabitant, Campania with 63,2 euro and Calabria with 45,3 euro. Otherwise, we note the results obtained in Lombardy and Veneto, where the evasion per inhabitant is respectively 5,6 and 5 euro. The non-payment registered in Trentino Alto Adige and Valle d'Aosta is practically nil.
Finally, the data emerged in the survey conducted by Utilitatis allow us to estimate the delinquency of the water service provided to domestic users only by geographical distribution. Against an overall water expenditure of Italian families equal to 4,6 billion, the non-collection amounted to 364 million to 2 years since the invoice was issued, of which 226 million euros belong to families in the South (11 euro per inhabitant), 80 million to those in the North (3 euro per inhabitant) and 58 million to those in the Center (5 euro per inhabitant).
