The Horror of Taxes

In Italy the income-tax law is about as popular, and as enforceable, as Prohibition used to be in the U.S. Out of 47 million Italians, barely a million admit to any taxable income at all; of the million, only a handful admit to making more than 5,000,000 lire ($8,000) a year. In 1954 Gina Lollobrigida, one of Italy's most conspicuous assets, reported an income of but $4,800. The tax collectors' estimate of her income: $40,000. When Textile Manufacturer Gaetano Marzotto once owned to an income of $704,000, Rome's Il Tempo suggested that "statues be built to him and piazzas named in his honor."

Four years ago, Finance Minister Ezio Vanoni created a stir by requiring all Italians to make out annual tax returns. Roberto Tremelloni, Finance Minister in the Scelba government, went even further. Tremelloni introduced a bill which would for the first time 1) require an oath in making out. returns, and 2) exact penalties for defrauding the government. His bill got nowhere. Not only was it resisted by Neo-Fascists and Monarchists, but it was repellent to the big-money backers of the ruling Christian Democrats. The bill languished in committee until one day last month, when Fellow Traveler Pietro Nenni, freshly returned from imbibing political wisdom in

Moscow, proclaimed a change in strategy. Nenni Socialists and their Communist allies would henceforth be willing to support "progressive legislation." With that, Tremelloni's bill was hauled out of committee and put to the vote.

The prospect of having to declare either for it or against it produced a severe case of stay-at-home-itis among the Deputies.

Ex-Premiers Mario Scelba and Giuseppe Pella absented themselves along with almost a third of their Christian Democrat followers. Of the 68 Monarchists and Neo-Fascists, only 13 were in the Chamber last week when the Tremelloni bill finally passed, 315 to 47. Well over 200 of the favorable votes were cast by the Communists and Nenni Socialists.

Next day, in pique, Rome's biggest moneymen went on strike against tax reforms by closing the stock exchanges. An official of the Finance Ministry explained sympathetically, "Italians cannot be made to accept the idea of sending a man to jail for failure to pay taxes."

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