I agree don't make any sense to invest in Italy, it's a money pit.
Your taxes aren't coming back at you as services, but they are for a big share going in someone else's pockets. Never forget about that.
Yes it's true the north is more fast paced and the rat race is strong. N is richer, more people so more ways to
make money, so maybe you get a bit more "air" out of it.
But you are still feeding the beast with your taxes and only a small of it comes back.
Either be the mafia, lazy freeloaders on benefits, corrupted politicians/employees from the local council up to the president's palace. Oh BTW, the latter costs more than the white house yearly, enough said.
Mafia estimated extortion from businesses it's 160 mln per year, and the can launder them easily:
ANSA reported that Recordare also referred to the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia where he said that 'they were still picking up the pieces of her in Malta'.
newsbook.com.mt
Over a million Italians earn a living from politics
Italian MPs twice as pricey as German MPs
Quirinal Palace costs over double Queen's royal residences, more than white house
www.italianinsider.it
Italian's
quirinal palace =
240mln per year =
750 employees
USA
white house =
130mln per year =
370 employees
that's only the president's palace. It's all like that, from the top down to the smallest village council.
from the above link:
"Public procurement in Italy accounts for around 10 % of
GDP.
It is carried out by around 30 000 contracting agencies at all levels of the public administration.
At the national level, centralization occurs through Consip, the main purchasing body.
Public procurement accounts for 60 % of public works performed at the local level.
The Italian public procurement system displays weaknesses in its legislative framework and lacks adequate administrative capacity. It is also a field prone to fraud and to links with organised crime.
According to the 2013 ANAC Report, around 22 % of the total number of convictions for corruption were linked to public procurement.
It is also estimated that
the average cost of building high-speed railway tracks in Italy costs €61 million/km compared to €10 million/km in France, Spain or Japan"
you see what I mean?
DO NOT FEED THE BEAST.
You surely could live well there. As I said it's cheap in many areas. If you got a decent amount of money and can find a way to pay a fair share of taxes is not that bad, as long as you don't have to rely on state. And you will enjoy it for a while.
I mean go there on holidays. Explore it, it's great.
But do not start a business there if you don't know how things work.
You'll get burnt. Another thing is they don't pay for their mistakes. Be it a judge, tax employee, council employee.
If you pay more taxes than due by error, they'll never acknowledge it and will be hard fight to have it back. They'll not answer and you'll have to sue them, that'll cost you time(years) and money(thousands).
It's not conspiracy, the rules are scripted to keep you at the "barely scraping level", to rely on the state. Self-realization as individual through entrepreneurship is almost forbidden, unless you feed the system, politics, mafia. Every smart ones with a big business idea ran away.
That's why everyone's dream in Italy is to become a "public servant". It's like winning the lottery.
If you're sole trader, anywhere past ~50k gross per year you are in the
rich tax bracket (
), and they'll start to hammer you to death either with taxation or bureaucracy or pension contributions (probably you'll never anything past the minimum pension, public servants get better pension laws too, plenty of sick days, should I say months... etc).
You'll end up working your a*s for less than what a junior public servant makes.
There are new tax regimes for new sole traders, like 5 or 15% of
income tax for a few years. But they are like a gateway drug, after those few years, you'll go into regular regimes and if you're not "creative", you'll be taxed to death.
These low taxes were just put in place a few years ago. Now they are already talking about upping it back to at least 23% (you still have to add pension etc).
It's not impossible to do it. But it'll be much much harder than UK.
I know brits living in italy. They all say yeah good food, good weather but nothing works, and I still don't know why.
I know italians living in UK. They say shitty weather, shitty housing but stuff works and I was able to start a successful business.
I lived in UK too years ago. I have the whole vision. I know UK these days is going south too, but you get the gist.
All the deep pockets Italian entrepreneurs have inherited the company from their parents, and grandparents and so on.
The "self made man" through business in Italy is almost impossible these days.
Unless you scam people
