ABSTRACT: A promoting committee has tabled the questions relative to seven referendums, including one relative to the "abolition of the withholding tax". The economist Antonio Martino explains the reasons for this referendum, and the need to achieve in Italy a true "fiscal transparency". After the referendum each citizen would realize "the size of the fiscal burden on him".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 22 November 1993)

A promoting committee, representative of various political and civil forces, has introduced at the Supreme Court of Appeal the questions relative to seven referendums, redundancy payment, union permissions, RAI advertisement. The question on the fiscal system concerns the abolition of the withholding tax. The economist Antonio Martino in an article on "Il Giornale" (October 22) explains the motivations, First of all, the "absolute need to achieve in Italy fiscal transparency". We should consider that, for instance, in 1982 the public sector spent 15,2 million for each citizen. We need to wonder where this sum has been taken from. And how. Martino's answer is abrupt: "Through swindle".

In other words? "The State has not taken 2.721.000 lire, it had 'borrowed' them". "It is an occult levy paid by persons who buy state bonds, since citizens will in any case pay the debts made by the state in this way. And then? "An additional 2.964.000 lire have been taken with indirect levies", Martino continues, "levies that are almost entirely invisible, both because they are included in the price of the products bought and because they are diluted continuously in time..." Lastly, "3.967.000 have been taken with 'social security contributions', which, being compulsory, are not contributions but taxes...".

Social contributions are largely paid by the employers. The tax-payer is used to lending little attention to the sum this corresponds to in retained at the source. In any case, more than 4.362.000 have been taken in direct levies, whereas the other revenues have produced slightly over one million. Martino is fierce on this point: "Adding all these figures, we understand the nature of the swindle enacted by Leviathan against the community: some 80% of all taxes in Italy are invisible, i.e. paid by unaware tax-payers". To rectify this iniquity a first step could be the referendum on the fiscal system, on the "withholding tax". If the referendum is passed, employers will no longer act as tax collectors. Each worker will pay the dues. Martino underlines that "a system of this kind would be, in pecuniary terms, identical to the current one, because the cost of labour, the net salary and the product of the taxes would remain unchanged. But it would be more civilized because the final tax-payer would realize the si

ze of the fiscal burden weighing on him". "It's a battle of liberal civilization - he concludes - "not a mere pecuniary fact".