ACCORDING to latest country report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), cutting taxes on labour should be the priority if the policy objective is economic growth and increased employment, while Italian politicians have continued to debate the possibility of abolishing the taxation of first residences within the local property tax (IMU).

The OECD supports continued fiscal austerity, to achieve a long-term decline in Italy's high level of public debt, in order to reach the fiscal targets for this year and for 2014, even if it means that there will be no growth in the economy till next year. The OECD remarked that the significant tax cuts in the near term will be impossible, and it will only be possible to reduce gradually the overall high level of taxation in the future.