What do Italians think about Tax Evasion?

The paper shows the opinions on taxes of Italian citizens based on data gathered in four different national surveys between 1992 and 2013. Through a Principal Component Analysis, the study constructs a synthetic indicator of the propensity to evade, examining its intensity across various social groups and its evolution over time. The results show that the propensity to evade taxes is greater among households whose heads have low levels of education and income, are elderly and are resident in the South. Over time, the propensity to evade taxes has been growing on average, especially in the North, which has reduced the gap compared with the South, and among young people under 30 years old. The paper also shows a link between the propensity for tax evasion and some indicators of actual evasion, such as the use of cash and the under-reporting behaviour in the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) conducted by the Bank of Italy, confirming the association between cultural elements and evasion behaviour