On November 22nd 2021, Istat releases on I.Stat data warehouse – ‘National accounts’ theme, ‘Environmental accounts/Environmental tax revenue’ sub-theme, the 2008-2020 time series on environmental tax revenue in Italy, broken down by tax category – energy, transport, pollution, resources – and taxpayer: economic activities (according to the hierarchical classification of economic activities, NACE Rev.2), households and non-residents.
Environmental taxes, as part of the more general group of taxes, are compulsory payments to the government, where the benefits provided to the taxpayer are not directly linked to the payment. A tax is defined as an environmental tax if its base is ‘a physical unit (or a proxy of it) of something that has a proven, specific negative impact on the environment’.
This approach, consistent with the international guidelines on environmental taxes, assigns primary importance to the tax base in deciding whether a tax is environmental or not, while the purpose stated by the tax legislator is not relevant. Hence, the revenue from environmental taxes can, in the legislation, be earmarked for environmental purposes or not.
Environmental purposes cover environmental protection (including for example waste management and soil decontamination) as well as resource management (for example energy efficiency measures or production of electricity from renewable sources). In this regard, please note that the new time series is not fully comparable with the old ones, where environmental purposes only covered environmental protection.
The time series are consistent with the ‘General Government aggregates and Accounts’ released in October 2021 on I.Stat – ‘National accounts’ theme, General Government statistics/Annual account/Taxes and social contributions by subsector’ sub-theme; General Government data are the main source for environmental tax revenue estimates.
For information:
Final demand, labour and capital input, environmental accounts Division
Angelica Tudini
tel. 06 4673.3136
tudini@istat.it