IRS, revenue up 2%. Revenue from assessments increased by 1.1 billion

The overall figure shows a positive sign. From January to September, tax revenues increased by8.4 billion (+2%). An 'unbalanced' increase in indirect taxes (+7.6 billion) while direct taxes grew by only 807 million. The view of the last month, however, gives a different perspective: the increase is only 48 million and on the direct side there is even a drop in revenue that exceeds half a billion euro (-2.5% compared to September 2024). Yet there is another figure that emerges plastically from the bulletin released by the Finance Department. The IRS collects more under the heading "assessment and control". The dynamic marks even +1.1 billion that corresponds to 10.8 per cent: 951 million 'additional' (+19%) come from direct taxes while 187 from indirect taxes. Behind this are two orders of factors. On the one hand, some of the maximum assessments defined by the Inland Revenue in the past months are arriving at the treasury, therefore with spread amounts that constitute a rich booty for the Treasury's coffers. On the other hand, there has been an intensification on the countering of fraud: recovery actions that have enabled the Revenue Agency to stop the illicit use of tax credits, limiting undue compensations and demanding the taxes due (with penalties and interest) from those concerned. The trend seems to have lasted over the past year, so a confirmation is to be expected also in the final three months of 2025, which, as in previous years, are those in which much of the assessment activity is concentrated due to the deadlines affecting the tax periods concerned.

Looking at the broader dynamics of tax revenues, there is the consolidation of the effect of the new cut to the tax wedge that took effect on 1 January, which is in addition to the reduction of the Irpef from four to three rates that has already been in force since 2024. "This series of interventions has resulted in a structural reduction of withholding taxes by withholding agents," explain the Finance Department. Withholdings that, in the private sector in September, dropped by €338 million (-4.7%), despite the fact that, according to ISTAT data, the number of employed people rose by 0.7% and hourly contractual wages between September 2025 and the same month in 2024 grew by 2.4% in the private sector and by 3.3% in the public administration.

More positive for the tax authorities was the trend on the front of the substitute tax on capital income and on capital gains capital gains. In September, the growth line was again confirmed, with a further leap forward of EUR 316 million, bringing the differential for the first nine months of the year to almost EUR 1.8 billion more (i.e. +12.9%) than in the same period of 2024. The result is mainly the result of market reaction on assets under management, which, according to Assogestioni data, at the end of 2024 recorded assets of EUR 2,509 billion, up sharply from EUR 2,338 billion at the end of 2023. The increase in revenue was influenced, in particular, by the particular profitability of the investments made by taxpayers.

A crutch that is always useful to support tax revenues is the VAT. From January to September, receipts grew by EUR 3.5 billion (+2.8%), mainly concentrated on domestic trade. And despite the fact that since July it no longer applies to suppliers of listed companies, the split payment guarantees almost 12% of the tax in domestic transactions. Resisting on the indirect side are also the good performances of stamp duty, registration fee and excise duty on the energy markets in direct correlation with the reference 'markets'.