Economic integration and government size: a review of the empirical literature

This paper considers some open issues concerning the role of the personal income tax in regional and local finance. It compares different technical instruments to share the personal income tax among levels of government, analyzing particularly the differential effects of the two main forms of overlapping taxation, the surtax and the surcharge. It is proved that both instruments increase the redistributional impact of personal income taxation, the surcharge to a larger extent than the surtax. The second part of the paper describes the present framework of the sharing of income tax in Italy, based upon regional and local surtaxes, and the new perspectives opened by the reform of intergovernmental fiscal relations recently approved by Parliament.