Italian local governments’ fiscal authonomy since the early 1990s heavily relied on the local tax on immovable property (ICI – imposta comunale sugli immobili). Local governments’ fiscal authonomy in the last 25 years however has not developed linearily, but has suffered from various pressures and reforms often prompted by other and different concerns and priorities. Hence local governments’ fiscal authonomy has been affected by three main processes. First the wider development of the process of fiscal decentralisation in Italy, second political concerns for the reduction of fiscal pressure, and finally the wider economic developments, in particular the economic and financial crisis of 2008 and the related problems of public budget balance and growht of the Italian public debt.
The purpose of this paper is to anayse the pillars of local governments’ fiscal authonomy, starting with local governments’ tax on immovable property, and then analysing other sources of financing such as special contributions, ear-marked taxes and urban development charges (oneri di urbanizzazione) with reference also to the tool of partecipatory budgeting.