(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 16 - Paying taxes and being honest to the state are an "investment for the future", the director of Italy's Inland Revenue Agency Ernesto Maria Ruffini said on Thursday.
    "Taxes are the instrument that allows us to live together and pay for citizen services," Ruffini told Sky tg 24.
    "Paradoxically, tax evasion is an asset because if you can bring it down that means more revenue in the Treasury's coffers that is available to Parliament and to the government to enact desired policies," he continued. Last week Ruffini told parliament the income revenue agency had collected a record 20.2 billion euro in unpaid taxes in 2022.
    "The propensity to evade taxes is decreasing," he told Sky tg 24, adding that is is however necessary to "attack this mountain of resources".
    The results of tax evasion efforts are "improving" but it is necessary "to continue with seriousness and determination", concluded Ruffini. (ANSA).