Any experiences with the Italian inbound regime?

[xipoid]

Some other things to consider based on research:
0.5% "wealth tax" on any accounts or investments outside Italy (this can be reduced to a flat tax if you move them to SEPA).
26% flat dividend/CGT tax.
Pricing for accountancy and company structures seems a bit hard to pin down. There are different kinds of company and it's not as clear as it might be whether you can continue to use the same company if you expand into other spheres of activity. I suspect it would be pretty uncomfortable to try and operate a foreign company from Italy also, even if you declare it and try to do everything above board.
The tax office has a reputation for being able to fine first on a principle of guilty until innocent, and innocence is rarely proven.
There's also an issue of trust; given the impact of Corona, who trusts a promise of 10 or even 5 years?

 

[xipoid]

Forget Italy. Do no put tax residence there unless you are an Italian public "servant", so you're forced to...
if you want my view on the state of the country, I'll write a long post about it. Italian citizen here.
Italy is beautiful. As a tourist.

Please rant away, I'd be interested. The only reason I'm considering this mad idea is because of Brexit and the deadline of the end of the year to move to an EU country and keep most EU rights (in that one single country). After that, the process for getting a visa in Italy seems pretty arduous.

 

[jackfrost]

The tax office has a reputation for being able to fine first on a principle of guilty until innocent, and innocence is rarely proven.

That is exactly the reason btw why i always stress the "law might be on your side but the tax office has burocracy on its side and will use it against you no fucks given" thing especially when it comes to short term tax certificates or not having one.

People need to understand that really good depending on their passport country.

 

[BrandonH1987]

They are so expensive it is better to take the bus

 

[Martin Everson]

Ok sounds like a tax trap i.e they are selling you a short term paradise in return for a long term hell .

 

[karishi]

Please rant away, I'd be interested. The only reason I'm considering this mad idea is because of Brexit and the deadline of the end of the year to move to an EU country and keep most EU rights (in that one single country). After that, the process for getting a visa in Italy seems pretty arduous.

In Spain, which is not a good country fiscally speaking, you can get residency with health insurance (700 EUR a year for a good one), empadronamiento (you can get it with a six month rental contract) and 9.600 EUR on a spanish bank account (Caixa works well). This gives you the green NIE which is more or less residency. As a UK citizen you should be able to get this if you move fast before the 31st of december. Procedure is much easier than gettin residency in Italy. In that way, you will be residing in Spain without gaining money, so just keep a low profile, don't work for spanish companies, don't move money in your spanish account from accounts not in your name, pay your rent in cash, you should not have issues.

 

[Konstanz]

Also, Italy has CFC and PE rulings. It might be convenient if you are low profile business man or freelancer.

 

[kkein]

In Spain, which is not a good country fiscally speaking, you can get residency with health insurance (700 EUR a year for a good one), empadronamiento (you can get it with a six month rental contract) and 9.600 EUR on a spanish bank account (Caixa works well). This gives you the green NIE which is more or less residency. As a UK citizen you should be able to get this if you move fast before the 31st of december. Procedure is much easier than gettin residency in Italy. In that way, you will be residing in Spain without gaining money, so just keep a low profile, don't work for spanish companies, don't move money in your spanish account from accounts not in your name, pay your rent in cash, you should not have issues.

arent you forgetting CRS? if you move, you are supposed to change your residency on all your bank accounts.
At which point spanish tax auth can easily check what you are declaring and what you arent.
I might be overlooking something, but doing as you say seems a one way ticket to troubleland

 

[karishi]

arent you forgetting CRS? if you move, you are supposed to change your residency on all your bank accounts.
At which point spanish tax auth can easily check what you are declaring and what you arent.
I might be overlooking something, but doing as you say seems a one way ticket to troubleland

Yes, you are supposed to, but nobody will force you. And the truth is that you can become a spanish resident without even having a bank account in Spain. When you open the account with a Spanish bank (and in some parts of Spain you don't even need the spanish bank) to put 9.600 Euro on it, you open it with your passport. In spain you are identified by a NIE number. You can either close the account the day you get the green NIE and open a new one the next year when you need to renew it or you can simply keep the account as non resident, so you don't put your NIE number in the account.
If you don't work in spain, and don't have kids which needs to go to school, and pay the rent in cash, don't buy a car, it's really difficult for the Spanish governement to track you down. This way of getting residency is basically saying that you will live in spain to spend your money as a long term tourist.
I'm not saying that this is 100% safe, it's not, if you want to be 100% safe you need to get a residency in Malta or in another low tax country, and spend 183 days there, but depending on how your business is organized it might be safe enough.
In any cas this was more to address the problem that the OP needed to get a residency in europe, getting it in Spain, until end of year, is much easier than getting it in Italy as of now. People I know from US and Canada that wanted to spend a year in europe ruled out Italy and went to Spain exactly for the same reason, it's much easier to get documents.

 

[kkein]

Yes, you are supposed to, but nobody will force you. And the truth is that you can become a spanish resident without even having a bank account in Spain. When you open the account with a Spanish bank (and in some parts of Spain you don't even need the spanish bank) to put 9.600 Euro on it, you open it with your passport. In spain you are identified by a NIE number. You can either close the account the day you get the green NIE and open a new one the next year when you need to renew it or you can simply keep the account as non resident, so you don't put your NIE number in the account.
If you don't work in spain, and don't have kids which needs to go to school, and pay the rent in cash, don't buy a car, it's really difficult for the Spanish governement to track you down. This way of getting residency is basically saying that you will live in spain to spend your money as a long term tourist.
I'm not saying that this is 100% safe, it's not, if you want to be 100% safe you need to get a residency in Malta or in another low tax country, and spend 183 days there, but depending on how your business is organized it might be safe enough.
In any cas this was more to address the problem that the OP needed to get a residency in europe, getting it in Spain, until end of year, is much easier than getting it in Italy as of now. People I know from US and Canada that wanted to spend a year in europe ruled out Italy and went to Spain exactly for the same reason, it's much easier to get documents.

What you suggest might have worked 10 years ago.
I believe you can now more or less count on the fact that, once your 100k/yr keeps landing on your old account and getting reported to the country you have emigrated from, you'll hear from someone.
That's the whole point of this forum, I believe.
It would be interesting to know if someone has actual experience with similar setup: a continuous flow of money landing into an account reported to the "wrong" country where they either do not know you, or they know you aren't resident since you emigrated.

 

[karishi]

What you suggest might have worked 10 years ago.
I believe you can now more or less count on the fact that, once your 100k/yr keeps landing on your old account and getting reported to the country you have emigrated from, you'll hear from someone.
That's the whole point of this forum, I believe.
It would be interesting to know if someone has actual experience with similar setup: a continuous flow of money landing into an account reported to the "wrong" country where they either do not know you, or they know you aren't resident since you emigrated.

This works best if you can get the CRS reporting to a third country where you don't reside, which is not your home country or your country of residence.
In any case I was not suggesting this as a tax optimization thing, this and other approaches have been vastly discussed on the forum, search for "how to avoid CRS". At the moment, the simplest way which nobody knows how long it will work is being paid on transfewise, I was just saying that getting residency in Spain is easy. Then you have to make sure to avoid CRS in other ways to be safe if you want to optimize taxes.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

I would rather get residency in Malta then. With Malta residency, you can still spend time in Spain.

 

[karishi]

I would rather get residency in Malta then. With Malta residency, you can still spend time in Spain.

Yeah, like I said above if this is also to optimize taxes, you can get a residency in Malta,I think you need more money though, don't remeber exactly. In any case to be safe you then would need to spend 183 days in Malta, because if you get a residency in malta, but buy a house in spain and live there more than 6 months a year, you will for sure be under scrutiny by the tax authority. As usual there are lots of variables to consider, there is no silver bullet solution that always works

 

[xipoid]

Also, Italy has CFC and PE rulings. It might be convenient if you are low profile business man or freelancer.

What kind of thresholds are you suggesting?

As far as CFC goes, I understand it's quite a lot of effort to represent to the tax office that your business is headquartered elsewhere. They will demand a lot of proof. And any dividends you take are still taxed at 26% anyway.

The alternative is to have an Italian limited, probably an SRL, which doesn't seem like the cheapest, most trustable, or most flexible option. Accountant pricing is a bit like those Italian restaurants which lack a menu, and in which you can be sure you'll be fleeced for coperto before you've ordered a thing.

 

[kkein]

IIRC italy also introduced a funny scheme according to which, if your company operates in sector X, you have to pay a minimum (minimum, not maximum) of <predefined> taxes, because you are assumed you earnt at least <predefined> amount of money. if you declare less they assume you are not declaring it, even nowadays.

 

[biz1]

@marioIT yes please feel free to share your past Italy experience with respect to business, taxes.

 

[heliotrope]

Some concrete examples here: Agevolazioni per lavoratori impatriati: reddito esentasse dal 50% al 90%

E.g. If you net 120k, you keep 103k (in the north). But this is with social included, so not too shabby.

You have to commit to spend at least a couple of tax years in Italy.

Biggest problem is that this doesn't work if you need a proper limited liability company. It's fine for partita IVAs, for which you can even get private indemnity insurance, but these have no limitation of liability. They also have stringent checks ('esterovestizione') that you don't use a simple company abroad; you'd better only be a minority shareholder. Anyway, if you need an Italian company (like an SRL), the tax rises above 60%.

Also, it's Italy: if they can drown you in a thousand bits of paperwork, they will. I read some study that it's the third most complex tax system in the world. For example, if you want to sell even online you have to get permission from the municipality in which you're registered.

You'll pay 0.2% on your crypto (and other holdings), and 26% when you cash to fiat or realise gains.

 

[Marzio]

I read some study that it's the third most complex tax system in the world

They are so fucked up that i thought they were #1! Who is the winner?

 

[heliotrope]

They are so fucked up that i thought they were #1! Who is the winner?

Lol, Turkey and Brazil take the prize. Tasse, siamo davvero il Paese più tartassato d’Europa? | Milena Gabanelli

The stat about the days needed to collect all the documentation together is alarming.

To be fair, I've frequently read the same thing about the UK, although in reality what it is is that it has the longest tax code in the world.

@marzio have you voted with your feet or do you accept it in return for the nice pasta and pizza?

 

[Utah]

You have to commit to spend at least a couple of tax years in Italy.

Can you show me where this is stated? I have not seen this and I have read quite a bit about it.

Biggest problem is that this doesn't work if you need a proper limited liability company. It's fine for partita IVAs, for which you can even get private indemnity insurance, but these have no limitation of liability. They also have stringent checks ('esterovestizione') that you don't use a simple company abroad; you'd better only be a minority shareholder. Anyway, if you need an Italian company (like an SRL), the tax rises above 60%.

You can create a private limited company and pay yourself 100% of the profit as a salary. Then you pay no corporate tax and only the reduced income taxes plus social contribution tax (I have to check how much this would be, could be still too much).