Landini’s 30 billion

For some years now, Maurizio Landini has continued to put forward a blatantly false claim: that the government has taken tens of billions in taxes from workers through the ‘fiscal drag’ and has never returned it. Until a few weeks ago, this figure stood at 25 billion. Yesterday, in an interview with La Repubblica, the figure suddenly became “30 billion in additional tax revenue from 2022 to 2025”, said the general secretary of the CGIL: “Tax brackets and allowances must be automatically reassessed”, is his proposal, to which he adds a call for greater “progressivity”. This version is full of holes. One cannot attribute the increased revenue to fiscal drag without taking into account the reduced revenue resulting from the tax reforms implemented by the Meloni government (two in particular: the reduction in social security contributions and the cut in personal income tax). According to all studies by independent authorities, both national and international – from the ECB to the Bank of Italy, including the Parliamentary Budget Office (UPB) – in recent years the Meloni government has more than fully offset the tax drain and the erosion of transfers caused by inflation. There is no doubt about this.

In fact, something more has been done: personal income tax has become more progressive. As shown by various studies by the UPB, which compared the tax system in force in 2021 with full indexation (the policy called for by Landini) with that planned for 2026, it emerges that low- to middle-income workers (earning between 10,000 and 32,000 euros) now face an average tax rate that is 2–3 percentage points lower: This means that the tax reforms introduced by the Meloni government have proved more generous than the mere indexation of the tax system called for by the CGIL, because personal income tax has become more progressive. Those who have lost out, however, are those with incomes between 32,000 and 45,000 euros. Landini cannot focus solely on the fiscal drag created whilst ignoring the tax cuts made using that revenue, because if he does so, his calculation – which currently stands at 30 billion – will rise to infinity. Meanwhile, his credibility will approach zero.