La fiscalità ambientale multilivello: sviluppi e incongruenze nel caso delle regioni italiane

Abstract. To this day the investigation of the role of green taxes has been mainly (or almost completely) concentrated on national fiscal systems, while the local dimension has been largely ignored. This represents a gap to be filled, especially in view of the growing interest demonstrated towards both fiscal decentralization and environmental taxation. As a matter of fact, environmental taxes, or at least some of them, are strongly interrelated with the territorial sphere, and, accordingly, can represent an effective means for making citizens and city users pay for the services they benefit from, or for the external effects they generate. In the Italian case, Constitutional framework es- tablishes that (art.117) the environmental matters is are included among the exclusive competencies of the national government. At the same time, according to the fiscal federalism discipline, Regions regions can introduce new taxes for their own or for local governments, but can only do so respecting the general principles set by the national government in terms of fiscal coordination. In particular, they are allowed to introduce their own taxes on their territories only regarding matters that are not under the exclusive competence of the State state (competence and continence principles). The paper elaborates on two main related elements. First, it focuses on the role of envi- ronmentally related levies within a decentralized regulatory framework. Second, it considers in depth how different kinds of environmental levies implemented in Italy at the regional scale are concretely designed and ruled. The analysis will show how the regulatory role of subnational environmental levies is largely neglected, jeopardizing the opportunity to use them in a more effective and consistent way.