Struttura ed effetti redistributivi dell'imposta personale italiana: il confronto 2000-2005 e un esercizio di modifica

<em>Struttura ed effetti redistributivi dell'imposta personale italiana: il confronto 2000-2005 e un esercizio di modifica</em> (di Simone Pellegrino) - ABSTRACT: During the last five years the Italian Personal Income Tax structure has experienced important changes: the number of income tax rates has been reduced from five to four and almost all the tax credits have been replaced with two kind of income-related tax deductions. All these alterations have left the redistributive effect of tax quite unchanged: the Reynolds-Smolenky index decreases from 4.97 in 2000 to 4.89 in 2005, while tax progressivity improves because Kakwani index increases from 20.33 in 2000 to 24.44 in 2005. This has been possible because of the large lowering in overall average income tax rate, which decreases from 19.64 to 16.66 per cent. In addition, the present PIT structure does not seem to improve efficiency: the marginal effective tax rates are not increasing with the gross income and higher than the nominal ones, while the deductions for dependent children augment the unequal tax treatment among families with one or more source of income. This paper analyses these issues trying to individuate a possible PIT structure able to improve the present one from both the efficiency and equality ground.