Italy to Scrap Road Tax From 2027, and Lombardy's Fleets Do the Arithmetic

From 2027, the owners of roughly 70 percent of vehicles on Italy's roads will no longer pay the annual road tax, The Local Italy reported on Thursday. The measure, as the outlet describes it, is a broad exemption rather than a targeted rebate: the majority of the national car fleet simply stops paying the tax that has long been collected through the regions.

The road tax is a regional levy in Italy, not a national one, which is why the change lands hardest on the regions with the most vehicles registered. Lombardy, with a population of just over 10 million and the country's largest concentration of cars, vans and commercial fleets, is the single biggest collection base in the country.

The Local Italy's report does not set out the revenue figures involved, and the government has not, in that account, said how the regions would be compensated for the shortfall. That gap is the story the foreign press will follow: a tax cut announced nationally and absorbed regionally.