Toward a new family-friendly tax system: Which tax regime?

In the Italian legal system, the tax rules underlying the taxation of family income have undergone profound changes over the years, in line with the reform of family systems, which marked the transition from the patriarchal family, founded on the figure of the pater familias, to the nuclear one, made up of partners and children. Originally, the system chosen was that of juridical cumulation, consisting in the attribution to the husband, in his role as head of the family, of the income produced by the members of the family nucleus; following the intervention of the Constitutional Court, we moved from the principle of legal cumulation to that of decumulation, characterized by the individual (or separate) taxation of the income produced by each member of the family nucleus, allowing the single taxpayer to see the income independently taxed product, regardless of any assessment concerning one’s family situation. With the evolution of family models, the current legislation has also raised many critical issues. It is therefore necessary to implement a structural reform relating to family taxation, in the context of income taxation, in order to prepare a tax regime that complies with the principles and values expressed by the Constitution and repeatedly reiterated by the judge of laws.