All governments say they want to cut them to reduce public spending, but tax expenditures continue to grow undisturbed. Other than savings: the Italian jungle of discounts and concessions has grown from 720 treatments at the end of 2011 to 799 in 2015. And their value, also thanks to the 80 euro Irpef bonus introduced in 2014 by the Renzi government, has soared by as much as 50 %, going from 254 to 331 billion euros in the same period. The numbers were published by the Court of Auditors in the 2016 Report on the coordination of public finance.
In the same analysis, the accounting magistrates express concern about the public debt: its ratio to GDP is estimated at 123,7% in 2018, but the Court points out the centrality of this chapter of the public budget for market confidence and calculates that the recession (2008-2009 and 2007-2014) led to an increase in debt of 30 points of GDP.
The Report also shows that Italy is in second place in the European Union "in terms of levy on labor income with 42,8%, almost eight points above the European average", and in third place then in the ranking of the levy of business income: around 26%, “that is well over 50% of the EU average”. Finally, our country "is in 22nd place in Europe (with 17,7%) in the levy on consumption, almost four points less than the EU, and in fourth place both in the levy on real estate and in that 'power".
