A “heavenly” tax burden for Italian banks. In 2024, Italy's banks earned €46.5 billion in net earnings and paid €11.2 billion in taxes. This yields an effective tax rate (the ratio of taxes paid to profits) of 24.2%. In the same year, overall banking revenues increased to €110.1 billion, with €64.4 billion in net interest income from lending. This reflects an already established structural trend: over the last seven years, from 2018 to 2024, Italian banks have accumulated €162 billion in net profits, paying €33.9 billion in taxes, with an average tax incidence of 20.9%. This is the conclusion of an analysis conducted by the Unimpresa Research Center using data from the Bank of Italy. In the time frame under consideration, the system generated revenues of €626.3 billion, incurred costs of €391.3 billion, and recorded overall interest margins of €331.2 billion. On average, Italian banks generated €89.5 billion in revenues annually, with €47.3 billion of this revenue derived from lending activities, yielding €23.1 billion in net profits and paying €4.8 billion in taxes. A substantially lower tax burden than firms and workers, which is far above 40%. The average tax rate in the sector has remained just above 20% for the past seven years. This is in sharp contrast to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are frequently burdened by a tax rate that exceeds 60% of their profits.