Concentration of Income and Wealth in Italy and Remarks on Their Tax Treatment

Although Italy continues to demonstrate good overall economic conditions and resilience in response to recent crises, the economic situation of households has been deteriorating for several years, with significant inequalities in how this has occurred. In the literature, the analysis of economic inequalities has primarily focused on the distribution of income among individuals and households, while the analysis of wealth distribution has been less common. Recently, however, some studies have ventured into joint analyses of income and wealth distribution to better explore, and potentially address, the issue of growing inequality. In Italy, for instance, the Gini concentration index for gross income has remained substantially unchanged over the past few years, while it has increased by 3 percentage points for household net wealth. A positive association between income and wealth has been observed, particularly in the lower and upper segments of the distribution, which exhibit the highest levels of inequality in terms of both income and wealth concentration. Yet, analyses of the tax burden in Italy reveal notable shortcomings in both horizontal and vertical equity within the tax system. In our study, we use data on Italian households collected by the Bank of Italy for the period 1991-2020 to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the joint distribution of income and wealth. Specifically, we focus on the economic circumstances of the wealthiest households, where income and especially assets are increasingly concentrated, and on those of less affluent households, some of whom have low incomes but relatively significant assets. This allows us to present a more detailed picture of the temporal evolution of these distributions, as well as regional variations across Italy. By doing so, we offer a more precise understanding of economic inequalities in the country and contribute to the debate on the impact of income and wealth taxes on Italian households. This analysis highlights the need for tax reforms aimed at aligning the Italian fiscal system more closely with principles of fairness and progressivity.