Wealth tax or tax amnesty? We need to fight tax evasion to achieve fairer taxes.

Without truly impacting those who don't pay them, the room for maneuver is narrow. Clear choices and the assumption of strong political responsibility are needed.

Whoever touches taxes gets burned. Because they lose consensus if they go in one direction, that of a true redistribution of the tax burden, by proposing a wealth tax or an increase in housing taxes , the only two instruments that allow them to secure revenue that can finance an effective cut benefiting lower incomes. Or because they risk damaging the public finances if they attempt a widespread cut, one that isn't merely symbolic. Or, again, because they incentivize tax evasion by promising amnesties and regularizations , even under the new definition of tax amnesty , which penalize those who pay their taxes regularly.

Summing up these reasons, it becomes clear why no government and no majority have yet demonstrated the strength to propose a real tax reform . And, perhaps, why it will never be implemented.

Whenever we discuss taxes, and therefore tax reform, we can only begin with the picture that tax return data consistently show. Taxes in Italy are paid by a small number of people, always the same people , with a share of the population that doesn't declare their income that is clearly too large to be tolerable.

In this context, numbers in hand, the priority for anyone considering tampering with the tax system should be one: the fight against tax avoidance and evasion . But chasing down those who don't pay taxes means increasing controls and harsher penalties, lowering rather than raising the tolerance level. Another approach unlikely to win consensus, but also the only one that could truly pave the way for a different scenario, leading to effective tax reform.

If we remain within the current ratio of taxpayers to non-taxpayers, the room for maneuver is narrowed to the point of almost disappearing. To have an impact, clear decisions and the assumption of strong political responsibility would be needed. Either the tax burden is shifted, and then the wealth tax, in its various forms, and property taxation, including housing, become tools that can produce redistributive effects. Or we decide that the tax burden can be further reduced, but in this case, given that taxes are essentially used to finance services, it must be taken into account that healthcare, public education, and, more generally, the welfare state could suffer a further reduction in available resources. (By Fabio Insenga )