The OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration has carried out a review of the organizational structure and institutional arrangements of the Italian tax administration including the Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency. The review which was requested by Italy’s Ministry of the Economy and Finance involved meetings with senior officials of the tax agencies, labor unions, tax experts, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and their consultants. A report on the findings was released on 19 July 2016.

Italy is currently carrying out import reforms in a number of policy areas with the intention of boosting long term growth. Effective action is expected from the government in improving the system of taxation as levels of compliance with tax law are low. The tax administration needs to be reformed to rationalize the use of resources, provide high quality services to taxpayers and improve levels of voluntary compliance.

The OECD report notes that structural reform is needed to change the behavior of all participants in the system. This would involve more oversight by Ministers and more autonomy for the agencies in the implementation of the strategy. Priority should be given to tackling non-compliance with a tougher approach to non-compliance taxpayers and a more cooperative approach to cooperative taxpayers including multinational enterprises.

The report recommends that reforms should be introduced to introduce behavioral changes in the tax administration and taxpayers. There should be more political oversight of the tax administration. At the same time the autonomy of the tax and customs agencies should be restored. There should be less fragmentation and overlapping of roles and responsibilities within the tax agencies.

The report also recommends that voluntary compliance by taxpayers should be supported and enhanced while those taxpayers that do not comply are promptly identified and penalized. The collection of tax debts should be modernized by the use of information technology, data analytics and administrative simplifications. In addition to extensive use of payment prompts and electronic payment methods outbound call centers should be used for enforcement-related work. International cooperation in tax collection is required to collect tax from those tax debtors who have gone abroad.