In 1973, Italy was one of the last Western countries to adopt a mass-based progressive income tax. While other nations introduced the tax due to war costs or demands for redistribution, Italy’s mass income tax was designed by a small group of technocrats led by economist Cesare Cosciani. Cosciani’s reform rejected the Italian tradition of public finance, skeptical of progressive taxation, and embraced US functional finance based on Keynes's theories. However, Italian policymakers, still sharing traditional economic views, limited progressive income tax to labor and business income, leaving capital income under a separate milder regime.
Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany - ORCID: 0009-0008-1101-2281
Chapter Title
Cesare Cosciani e l’introduzione dell’imposta personale sul reddito in Italia (1950-1970)
Authors
Paolo Bozzi
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0775-1.12
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
L’Italia repubblicana in cammino
Book Subtitle
Ricostruzione, crescita, instabilità
Editors
Piero Bini, Antonio Magliulo, Letizia Pagliai
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
264
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0775-1
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0774-4
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0775-1
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0776-8
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919