Court of Auditors: Only 17.7% of tax evasion discovered has been recovered.

17.7% of the uncovered tax evasion amounts translate into actual tax revenues: out of the €72.3 billion assessed in 2024, €12.8 billion was actually paid. This is what emerges from the analysis of state revenues conducted by the Court of Auditors in the volumes accompanying the report on the General State Budget. Within the overall data, it emerges that tax collections remain stable at 3.1%: €40.7 billion are assessed, €1.3 billion are paid. The Court considers this phenomenon to be "highly probable" to be "related to deep-rooted expectations of subsequent debt write-offs or the belief that subsequent enforcement action can be avoided."

Not only that. The tax authorities don't ring twice. In a single year, in 2024, they conducted substantive audits—those involving access and inspections that aren't based solely on paper documents—on 1.4% of taxpayers with entrepreneurial, self-employed, or professional activities. Of the 9 million taxpayers in these categories, just over 129,000 received a "visit" from tax inspectors. This averages out to approximately one taxpayer in seventy-one. In practice, without expedited audits, a 71-year rotation would be necessary to inspect everyone. This figure, obviously, doesn't take into account other types of audits. This is what emerges from the Court of Auditors' calculations on the frequency of substantive audits contained in the volumes accompanying the State General Budget report. "It is therefore quite clear," the Court states, "that the likelihood of actually being subject to an audit is very low."

In terms of audits and verifications, the Court of Auditors also focuses on the Revenue Agency's audits of tax returns for the three-year period 2019-2021, the last completed ones, broken down by taxpayer type. In 2021, the Agency sent 2.1 million notifications of income tax irregularities to individual taxpayers, for a total of approximately €4.5 billion in amounts owed. However, payments stopped at €448 million, 9.98% of the disputed amount. This then triggered the registration of approximately €2.7 billion: 61.27% of the evaded taxes. The situation is similar for partnerships and corporations. According to the returns, partnerships were found to have voluntarily paid 60% of the amount owed. The remaining portion saw 52,000 irregularity reports submitted, totaling €53 million in taxes. However, only 8.42% of the disputed amounts, equal to €4.5 million, were paid, meaning that 91.83% of the amounts deemed irregular were subsequently registered. Joint-stock companies, which achieved a compliance rate of 93.7% compared to their tax returns for the 2021 tax period, received disputes amounting to €2.1 billion, but only paid 9.63% of these amounts.

Also notable are the irregularities highlighted in VAT: the agency sent 1.4 million reports of irregularities, for just under €9.6 billion in disputed taxes. However, only 17.26% of this amount, approximately €1.7 billion, was paid. This triggered the filing of tax assessments for €5.7 billion. In the three-year period 2019-2021, only €5.2 billion of the €30 billion disputed was paid. "On average, tax collections requested following reports of irregularities (which were not cancelled)," states the Court of Auditors, "appear to constitute just over 16 percent of the total requested. This therefore represents a very limited percentage of the total amounts owed and unpaid. The causes of this phenomenon should be carefully analyzed, as they are highly likely related to deep-rooted expectations of subsequent write-offs or the belief that subsequent enforcement action can be evaded."