IMU on property abroad

Penny
03/23/2012 - 11:06

I was reading up on IMU and came across this recent article: http://www.businessvox.it/fisco/imposta-municipale-propria/ivie.html which might be interesting to those of you resident here with property abroad. It seems the new property tax IVIE will be due for 2011 too. It will be 0.76% on the purchase price of the property (as per the dead of sale) and is payable so long as this comes to more than €200. Owners of properties in the EU can deduct the property taxes due in the country where the property is located. It does not mention people who own property in non-EU countries. The article says you will need to pay tax on the local market value of the property if you did not buy (eg inherited) the property. No information so far on exactly how this is supposed ot be calculated. The diffreence between this tax and IMU is it will be paid via your annual tax return.

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Is this every year ? I assume not............if you had to, supposing you bought a property for (say) £250k(10yrs ago), you would need to pay nigh on 2k every year ? gulp !! S 

Yup - it's every year but you can deduct your Council tax from the bill here so for most Brits that is a big discount as council tax is so high. The new IMU bills are going to be a fair bit higher for holiday homes too. Here in Marche I read the other day that they will be charged at 0.96% for most comunes. That is on the cadastral value revalued by 5% then multiplied by 160. There is a calculator here: http://www.gianlucatotoli.it/studio-ingegneria-salerno/calcolo-IMU.asp#_Top and you can look your cadastral value up here: http://sister2.agenziaterritorio.it/CitizenVisure/index.jsp

In reply to by Penny

Hi Penny, Are you sure that Council tax paid in the UK can be decucted from the amount of EMU to pay? What about if the property is let. In that case the tenant usually pays the council tax and the council tax bill isn't in the landlords name. Do you think that is a problem?

I haven't found anything clear on this yet, but my reading is that the tax imposed by the Italian authorities for Italian residents owning property abroad is imposed on the (resident in Italy) taxpayer. Thus, IMO, if the council tax on a UK property owned by an Italian resident is paid by the tenant (or is the responsibility of the tenant) I'd be of the opinion that it is not deductible from the 'ownership' tax accruing to the Italan tax payer. I accept that this is looking on the black side of things, but if I'm completely wrong at least you'll get a sigh of relief rather than a horrid shock, and I predict there will be a court case about this...four or five years down the line.

From French forums it is becoming clear that banks and UK National Savings are complying fully with other European nations in the passing of information. Many French residents have been receiving letters and even penalties about ISA interest and Premium Bond winnings which have not been declared to French revenue. Both are tax free in UK but not in France (or Italy)

As premium bonds dont exist in Italy in any shape or form, are they classed as gambling, in which case there is a 6% tax to pay on winnings, or are they classes as azioni/shares in which case you would get nobbled.    I reckong you could fight it anwyay - it is a prize and prizes are not taxable in Italy. 

If you win something (more than €500) on one of the many lotteries which you can play in bars in Italy there is a tax - introduced a couple of months ago. It doesn't have to be declared, you just don't receive all of your winnings. Since I don't ever win, I had to look up the rate: it is 6%. It's not applicable to sporting bets - though the bookmakers now get clobbered by an extra tax if they have exceeded their normal 'margins' when setting the odds. The distinction between 'gambling' and a 'prize' is rather nice - the scratch card people would hate you to think you were gambling, though the bookies I'm sure don't offer prizes!