Immigrants in Italy who originated from outside EU countries paid sufficient social contributions to fund the pensions of more than half a million Italian retirees.
The non-EU immigrants were also responsible for creating just about one in five (18%) new companies registered in Italy in 2014.
Moreover, they were proportionately more likely to resister for VAT payments than any other sector of society.
The figures were revealed in the country’s 2015 Legal Yearbook. One of its editors, Roberto Garofoli is a magistrate also serving a chief of staff to the country’s finance minister.
Using ministry data, he calculated that non-EU nationals paid in about €8 billion, predominately in income tax, in 2014 while receiving only €3 billion in pensions and other benefits.
The balance was enough to finance 600,000 annual pensions.
While a youthful migration had so far benefitted Italy’s ageing society, the cost of funding new migrants is demanding.
More than 320,000 asylum-seekers and other migrants arrived in Italy in 2014 and 2015, most having been rescued from smuggler boats off Libya.
Garofoli said managing the influx had cost €3.3 billion in 2015, and a similar amount was likely to be needed in future years.
Italy’s population is approaching 60 million, including four million legal residents from such non-EU countries as Albania, North Africa, China and the Philippines.
