Irpef, 10 years of income: from Piedmont to Veneto, North at the tail end of increases

The last 10 years of the Irpef tell the story of a country that sees its own, historical territorial inequalities shrinking. This is positive news, even if it must be treated with some care.

Data on the latest tax returns compiled by the Ministry of the Economy and released last Thursday offer the most up-to-date photograph of taxable income reported to the tax authorities by Italians. On the whole, the figures show incomes that have grown slightly more than inflation, but the data calls for some caution: because compared to 10 years ago, the results of the fight against tax evasion have grown sharply, and the overall dynamic is affected by greater tax fidelity in addition to the nominal increases that have obviously not been lacking.

The rankings by absolute values return the usual geography, with Lombardy at the top and Calabria at the bottom. But over time the scissors have narrowed a little, because in 2024 the average taxpayer in Calabria reported an income equal to 64.1% of his Lombard counterpart, while in 2015 the ratio stood at 61.8%. It is not a revolution. But something is moving.

This is demonstrated by a ten-year comparison, which behind the exception represented by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (with an increase in average income of 7.7% in real terms, i.e. deprived of inflation for the period) sees southern regions such as Basilicata (+7.6%), Molise (+7.4%) and Abruzzo (+7.2%) gather at the top of the ranking. And the picture is confirmed by widening our gaze to embrace an unprecedented split in the middle: at the top the South, at the bottom the North Centre, with the ranking closed by Liguria (+0.5% in average real income between 2015 and 2024), Lazio (+1.9%), Piedmont (+2.4%), Toscana (+3.3%), Emilia-Romagna (+3.5%) and Friuli Venezia Giulia (+3.7%): all below the national average, which stood at 3.9%, driven evidently by the rest of the country.

The confirmation comes when the image pixels up, deepening the analysis at provincial level. Here, the black jersey is awarded to Genova, which even sees its actual income lose ground (-0.5%) in comparison with 10 years earlier, doing worse than Imperia (+0.4%), Como (+0.7%) and Varese (+0.9%). Data far removed from the +13.4% recorded by the average income in the province of Sassari and the +11.1% recorded in Southern Sardinia, which includes Sulcis Iglesiente and Medio Campidano. Here the exception is Verona (+10.6%), in a top quintet that is completed by Enna (+10.3%) and Teramo (+9.7%).