Against 300 billion in gross wages paid on average each year in the private sector, the State collects about 100 billion in social security contributions and 80 billion in Irpef for a total of 180 billion euros to be paid by employers and workers: therefore , the real tax and contribution wedge in the private sector is 60%, and is much higher than the OECD figure which stands at 46.5% in 2021 (referring to the average salary of a single worker), however among the highest of industrialized countries. In this report, the contribution wedge is higher because it weighs 33% while the tax wedge is 26%.
The pressing of the social partners
The topic is very topical, because pending the convocation by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the reduction of the tax wedge is placed by the social partners at the top of the agenda of requests to be made to the Government to give impetus to wages compressed by the flare-up of inflation, as emerged from the Trento economy festival, where there was a convergence between Cisl, Uil and Confindustria. Even for the leader of the CGIL Maurizio Landini, absent from the festival for family reasons, the priority is to increase the net paycheck for workers and retirees, with a cut of the wedge, however, all to the benefit of workers, and through the renewals of national collective agreements. (need shared by Luigi Sbarra and Pierpaolo Bombardieri). An opening from the Government came from the Minister of Economic Development, Giancarlo Giorgetti who observed how “Italy is among the countries with the lowest wages also because the State takes home a large part of the gross salary of workers”, indicating in the cut of the tax wedge the way to guarantee “the purchasing power which is the priority”.
In the spotlight there is the proposal of the president of Confindustria Carlo Bonomi of the structural reduction of the tax-contributory wedge from 16 billion euros, to the benefit of two thirds of workers and one third of companies which would lead to incomes of up to 35 thousand euros. benefit of 1,223 euros. In practice, they would have an extra month, financed in part by the 38 billion of extra tax revenue for 2022 indicated in the Def and in part by the reorganization of 1.6% of the approximately one thousand billion of public spending.
The actual burden incurred
IS therefore it is important to analyze the data that lead to the actual increase in the burdens to which the employer and the worker are subjected each year on the gross wages paid in application of collective bargaining, or on the initiative of the company. Every year on average in Italy just over 300 billion euros are paid in the private sector (the figure obviously varies from year to year). These are the wages paid gross of personal income tax and INPS that the law places on workers and on the same amount, employers are required to pay their social security and welfare charges so as to compose the tax and contribution wedge that they weigh on wages: that is, the difference between the cost that the company bears and the net that the worker receives.
On this point, various figures have been disseminated such as, for example, 46.5% (OECD data), 43% if we take some positions of private observers. These are all reliable figures, because it depends on the income bracket on which the analysis is based. On the other hand, not all companies pay the same contributions and not all workers pay the same personal income tax. For example, the OECD draws the figure of 46.5% by analyzing a single worker with an average salary. It is therefore normal that each type of nucleus or income can generate the different statistical value. The Italian figure is higher than the OECD average (34.6%), and if the institutes included in the OECD statistics are added to the severance pay and Inail contributions, the Italian wedge rises to around 50%, second only to that of Belgium (52.6% ).