The alignment of social forces vis-à-vis the payment of taxes is not quite perhaps what one would have imagined. Of course, the radio news has been reminding us with some insistency these last few days of our forthcoming civic duty as contribuenti. But not so the calendar of the frate indovino, who, despite his conservative attitudes on such questions as women and the family, despite his frequent appeals on behalf of all kinds of missions, does not hesitate to tell me at this crucial moment in the financial year that: ‘Italy is not, as the Constitution claims, “a Republic founded on labour” (of which there is less every day), but a Republic founded on taxes (of which there are more every day).’ Not satisfied with this inflammatory talk, he inserts, only shortly before the declaration deadline, the reflection: ‘The criminal is not obliged to testify against himself. The taxpayer is.’
What is the Church’s position here? Far from generating a sense of guilt in the would-be evader, the frate indovino seems to assume an attitude of solidarity with an oppressed population, as if we were still in the days when spendthrift Bourbon princes sent heavily escorted bailiffs about to wring the last centesimo out of a starving peasantry. The complicity will stop when we get back to sex of course, but on questions of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, our Rovigo-based friar has a demagogue’s infallible eye for the popular line. ‘To make sure that VAT is collected,’ he winds up the section entitled ‘Predictions’, ‘the Italian government intends to subject the Italian people to a machine that most nearly approximates a meat mincer.’ It’s as if, tipping us a wink, he were saying, ‘Don’t worry folks, do as you feel with your declaration and the Church will be on hand to shrive your peccadilloes afterwards.’
Sometimes, when I pick up my bread of a morning at Bepi’s, my friend invites me out for a quick espresso, and in these tense days towards the end of May we inevitably find ourselves discussing what is on everybody’s mind. ‘The government is a thief’, he announces almost at once. It’s a stock phrase, ‘governo ladro’. You frequently see it sprayed on walls and railway bridges. He shakes his shaggy head as though over an irretrievable and pitiful situation. I make the mistake of remarking a little piously that I do believe in a state where everybody pays what they have to, so that everybody can pay less, and I say I think the Church, with the hold it has over a lot of people, should tell them to cough up rather than conniving with them. Bepi’s response is somewhere between the incredulous and the irate. Am I mad? His head-shaking speeds up. His scorn is all too apparent. But then it occurs to him that this is merely my Englishness talking — of course, I’m from a different world, I don’t understand — and now he becomes concerned, his big forehead creases up, concerned that I may be about to make a big mistake and declare more than I need. He leans over the table, his voice urgent and conspiratoriaclass="underline" ‘What you have to remember’ — there’s a bright light of conviction in his green eyes — ‘what you have to remember is that they are attacking and you are defending. It’s naked aggression. And self-defence is always legitimate.’
‘The balance of indirect to direct taxation is fairly valido,’ pronounces Giampaolo more reasonably that evening. He is weighing his words carefully in this sad period when last year’s prosecco is already finished and the stuff we bottled last week isn’t ready yet. ‘Then the level of fiscal pressure has been established discretamente bene; but all this is rendered relativo by the fact that the government makes no serious attempt to collect. Except from dipendenti.’
And indeed the dipendenti have announced a protest to coincide with the tax-declaration deadline. They will be marching on the parliament in Rome, to demand draconian measures against the demonic autonomi who aren’t paying their fair share. To hot things up, the newspapers amuse themselves by publishing figures indicating the average level of earnings as declared by various categories of autonomi the previous year. Your average jeweller claimed he earned just five thousand pounds, the average doctor even less, the average lawyer not much more, etc. etc. It’s ludicrous. But everybody has their justification for behaving as they do, and the dipendenti’s protest is quickly followed by a series of articles showing how the government only wastes what it receives anyway, is generally corrupt and inefficient and always will be until Italy is more or less taken over by the European Community.
In the event, the administration of this year’s income-tax collection does little to improve the government’s image for fairness or efficiency. As May progresses and people go from one tobacconist’s to another in search of the appropriate forms, it becomes clear that not enough have been printed. Or perhaps they have been printed, but they are certainly not being distributed. Then to make matters worse, somebody discovers that an important mistake has been made on one of the pages. We will have to return to the tobacconist’s to buy a revised form. So that as well as reminding us of our civic duty, the radio is also talking about the possibility of a two-week postponement of the deadline for filing our returns. Indeed, this now seems more or less certain, the newscaster tells us, with a noticeably congratulatory tone to his voice. Just three days before we are supposed to pay, the Minister of Finance is interviewed and says that there will be no postponement, he has never mentioned such a thing, nor does he see why he should be obliged to deny any old rumour as soon as it starts circulating, even if it has been given credence by the public broadcasting network. People should never imagine anything has changed until he personally announces it has. And it hasn’t. There will be absolutely no concessions to anybody, and people who don’t file their returns inside the deadline will be fined in the regular fashion.
My accountant is thus in a state of desperation when I finally see him at nine in the evening the very day of the deadline. Out come all the invoices, the registers. His fingers incessantly tap the three-zeros button that distinguishes Italian calculators. As usual, I understand little of what he is saying about the various deductions available to me. I notice in my instruction book that if my wife was dependent on me I could reduce my taxable income by a splendid 120,000 Lire, or sixty pounds, and when I have a child I will be able to reduce it by a whole 48,000 Lire, twenty-four pounds.
Yet despite this evident meanness (there is no child benefit here), I am always surprised at how little I have to pay. ‘First,’ the accountant says briskly, ‘we reduce your income by 14 per cent. Now, let’s see.’ Fourteen per cent! Why? ‘Because in the category you fall into, or rather that we have chosen to put you into, taxable income is reduced by 14 per cent, which is considered to be your expenses. If the category were different, the reduction would be different. As would the percentage of national insurance you have to pay, and so on.’
When finally we get to the end of the whole business, it turns out the government actually owes me money. Which I can expect to be refunded in about four to five years’ time, the accountant remarks. ‘But you definitely will be re-funded. With a modest interest. And it’s always welcome when it comes, isn’t it?’ We finish towards eleven. The accountant has a whole stack of completed forms to be delivered to an office at the station which remains open until midnight the day of the deadline.