According to data released by the ministry Tuesday, total tax revenue for the first four months of the year was about 7.68 billion euros (9.31 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 6.0 percent compared to the same period last year.
The period of the first four months of last year is significant in that they include the last two months before the biggest impacts of the pandemic and the first two months of lockdown.
The increase is the first broad uptick in tax revenue since the start of the pandemic, according to Italian media reports.
Despite the year-on-year increase in tax revenue for the January-April period, the Bank of Italy reported, also on Tuesday, that the country's public debt reached a new all-time high, at 2.681 trillion euros, an increase of 29.3 billion euros compared to March.
According to the latest information from the data firm Statista, from late April, the Italian government's total debt is the equivalent of 155.7 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
Despite the high debt levels, the overall trends for the Italian economy are positive: two weeks ago, the country's National Statistics Institute reported the economy grew 0.1 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the end of 2020.
More importantly, the institute predicted a period of "sustained growth" starting in the second half of this year. It predicted the economy would swell by 4.7 percent for 2021 as a whole, followed by 4.4 percent growth next year.
With most economic models predicting stronger economic growth and higher tax revenue going forward, Italy's debt levels are expected to decline when measured as a percentage of the overall economy.
Statista's models predict a debt-to-GDP ratio of 152.9 percent next year, with further drops expected in subsequent years, though it will remain above the pre-pandemic rate of 134.8 percent of GDP recorded at the end of 2019.
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