A redistributive analysis of IRPEF using fiscal microdata

Journal title ECONOMIA PUBBLICA
Author/s Paolo Di Caro
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2017/1
Language Italian Pages 25 P. 35-59 File size 307 KB
DOI 10.3280/EP2017-001002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

This paper presents evidence on the distributive role of IRPEF, by using administrative microdata for the fiscal year 2014 elaborated at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (Tax File IRPEF). The following results are obtained. The new contents of the dataset are described. Empirical evidence is provided on the IRPEF’s redistributive role also for particular income categories. The distributive effects of tax credits are reported. It is also found that the tax credit "Bonus 80 euro" produced positive effects on the vertical distribution of income, but it had negative consequences on reranking. Specific findings are obtained for the territorial dimension of IRPEF. In conclusion, results are summarized and policy suggestions are proposed.

Keywords: Italia PIT, microdata, reditribution, 80 euro bonus

Jel codes: JEL: D31, H23, H24

  1. Acciari P. (2016). Collezione campionaria di dati estratti dalle dichiarazioni Irpef e analisi redistributive. 12° Conferenza Nazionale di Statistica. Roma: ISTAT.
  2. Acciari P. and Mocetti S. (2012). The geography of income inequality in Italy. Politica economica-Journal of Economic Policy, 28(3): 307-343. DOI: 10.1429/74177
  3. Albarea A., Bernasconi M., Di Novi C., Marenzi A., Rizzi D. and Zantomio F. (2015). Accounting for Tax Evasion Profiles and Tax Expenditures in Mi-crosimulation Modeling. The BETAMOD Model for Personal Income Taxes in Italy. Working Paper No. 24, Department of Economics, University of Venice, Italy.
  4. Arachi G. e Baldini M. (2016). La finanza pubblica in Italia. Bologna: il Mulino.
  5. Atkinson A.B. and Brandolini A. (2001). Promise and pitfalls in the use of ‘secondary’ data-sets: Income inequality in OECD countries as a case study. Jour-nal of Economic Literature, 39(3): 771-799.
  6. Atkinson A.B., Piketty T. and Saez E. (2011). Top incomes in the long run of history. Journal of Economic Literature, 49(1): 3-71.
  7. Baldini M., Giarda E., Olivieri A., Pellegrino S. e Zanardi A. (2015a). Il ‘bonus’ degli 80 Euro: caratteristiche ed effetti redistributivi. Rivista di Diritto Finanziario e Scienza delle Finanze, LXXIV (1): 3-22.
  8. Baldini M., Giarda E. and Olivieri A. (2015b). A tax-benefit microsimulation model for Italy: a partial evaluation of fiscal consolidation in the period 2011-2014. Bologna: Prometeia. --Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2665547.
  9. Baldini M. e Pellegrino S. (2016). Chi restituisce il bonus 80 euro. E perché. --www.lavoce.info, 7 giugno.
  10. Barbetta G.P., Pellegrino S. and Turati G. (2016). What Explains the Redistribution Achieved by the Italian Personal Income Tax? Evidence from Administrative Data. Public Finance Review.
  11. Bises B. and Scialà A. (2014). The Erosion of the Personal Income Tax Base in Italy: Equity Aspects, Economia Pubblica, 3: 145-166. DOI: 10.3280/EP2014-003008
  12. Bordignon M. and Zanardi A. (1997). Tax evasion in Italy. Giornale degli economisti e annali di economia, 169-210.
  13. Bosi P. (2016). Riforma delle detrazioni Irpef per familiari a carico e degli assegni familiari, CAPPaper n. 138. University of Modena & Reggio Emilia, Italy.
  14. Bourguignon A. (2016). Rising inequality: features, causes, consequences and corrective policies, Plenary Lecture, Italian Society of Public Economics XXVIII Annual Conference, Lecce.
  15. Di Caro P. (2016). Redistribution in real-world PIT: evidence from Italian tax records. Department of Finance working paper, forthcoming, Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, Rome, Italy.
  16. Di Nicola F., Mongelli G. and Pellegrino S. (2015). The static microsimulation model of the Italian Department of Finance: Structure and first results regarding income and housing taxation. Economia pubblica, 2: 124-158. DOI: 10.3280/EP2015-002004
  17. EU Commission (2014). Tax expenditures in direct taxation in EU Member States, European Economy Occasional Papers, no. 207, Brussels.
  18. Figari F., Paulus A. and Sutherland H. (2015). Microsimulation and policy analysis. In: Atkinson A.B. and Bourguignon F. (eds.). Handbook of income distribution, 2141-2221, Elsevier.
  19. Fiorio C.V. and D’Amuri F. (2006). Tax evasion in Italy: an analysis using a tax-benefit microsimulation model. The IUP Journal of Public Finance, 4(2): 19-37. --Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.702922.
  20. Golladay F.L. and Haveman R.H. (2013). The economic impacts of tax-transfer policy: Regional and distributional effects. Elsevier.
  21. Gordon R.H. and Kopczuk W. (2014). The choice of the personal income tax base. Journal of Public Economics, 118: 97-110.
  22. Guiso L. (2014). Effetti del bonus da 80 euro: calcolare con cura, --www.lavoce.info, 28 ottobre.
  23. IMF (2014). Fiscal Policy and income inequality. IMF Policy Paper, IMF, Washington, DC.
  24. Journal of Income Distribution (2016). The role of administrative data in empirical inequality research. Special issue, forthcoming.
  25. Lambert P.J. (2001). The distribution and redistribution of income, 3rd edition. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
  26. Morini M. and Pellegrino S. (2016). Personal Income Tax Reforms: A Genetic Algorithm Approach. European Journal of Operational Research,
  27. Neyman J. (1934). On the two different aspects of the representative method: the method of stratified sampling and the method of purposive selection. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 97(4): 558-625. DOI: 10.2307/2342192
  28. Neri A., Rondinelli C. and Scoccianti F. (2015). The marginal propensity to consume out of a tax rebate: the case of Italy. Bank of Italy, Rome, mimeo.
  29. Onrubia J., Picos-Sanchez F. and del Carmen Rodado M. (2014). Rethinking the Pfahler – Lambert Decomposition to Analyse Real-world Personal Income Taxes. International Tax and Public Finance, 21: 796-812.
  30. Palmisano F. and Van de Gaer D. (2016). History-dependent growth incidence: a characterization and an application to the economic crisis in Italy. Oxford Economic Papers, 68(2): 585-603.
  31. Pellegrino S., Piacenza M. and Turati G. (2012). Assessing the Distributional Effects of Housing Taxation in Italy: A Microsimulation Approach. CESifo Economic Studies, 58(3): 495-524.
  32. Pfähler W. (1990). Redistributive effect of income taxation: decomposing tax base and tax rates effects. Bulletin of Economic Research, 42(2): 121-129.
  33. Piketty T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: HUP.
  34. Poterba J.M. (2011). Introduction: Economic analysis of tax expenditures. National Tax Journal, 64(2): 451-458.
  35. Seidl C., Pogorelskiy K. and Traub S. (2013). Tax progression in OECD countries: An integrative analysis of tax schedules and income distributions. Springer Science & Business Media.
  36. Tyson J. (2014). Reforming Tax Expenditures in Italy: What, Why and How? IMF Working Paper no. 7, IMF, Washington, DC.
  37. US IRS (2016). General Description Booklet for the 2010 PUBLIC USE TAX FILE, Washington.
  38. Verbist G. and Figari F. (2014). The Redistributive Effect and Progressivity of Taxes Revisited: An International Comparison across the European Union. FinanzArchiv, 70: 405-29.
  39. Visco V. (1984). Disfunzioni ed iniquità dell’Irpef e possibili alternative: un’analisi del funzionamento dell’imposta sul reddito in Italia nel periodo 1977-83. In: Gerelli E. e Valiani R. (a cura di). La crisi dell’imposizione progressiva sul reddito. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  40. Zee H.H. (2005). Personal income tax reform: concepts, issues, and comparative country developments. Washington, DC: IMF.

  • Do Details Matter? An Analysis of Italian Personal Income Tax Martino Tasso, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2020
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3745912
  • The contribution of tax-benefit instruments to income redistribution in Italy Stefano Boscolo, in ECONOMIA PUBBLICA 2/2022 pp.181
    DOI: 10.3280/EP2022-002001

Paolo Di Caro, Analisi distributiva dell’IRPEF utilizzando i microdati di fonte fiscale in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 1/2017, pp 35-59, DOI: 10.3280/EP2017-001002