rachel68's activity

Thanks Stephen, it would be good if you would pass on what you glean form your commercialista.. Someone made the point on this forum that the bext way of finding the 'best' way with the tax rules is to present to a commercialista all the different advice you will be given on these sort of forums and then they are quite happy to shift through and explore the correct solution for you. If you don't present multiple possibilities for how your situation might be managed you might just get the easiest way for them...they also apparently welcome this method if they are a good commercialista as it keeps them up to speed with the  chameleon -like taxation laws of Italy!

Dear Panner, When you refer to th double taxation treaty I hadn't realised that if I pay my tax owing on renting our family home in UK to the UK HMRC, Italy wouldn't accept my deductions as valid and would re-do the calculations. Is that really the case? Ie if my rental income was 10k per annum and after taking off mortgage interest, 10% wear and tear, repairs, insurance etc the profit came to 5K so I paid tax on 5k., would the Italian system take the 10k as a new figure, say I owe a flat 21% tax on 10k before taking off the accepted UK deductables ? That seems so unfair and not a 'double taxation treaty' at all if different countries within Europe can't agree on what is deductible. Anyone got experience of this? I had hoped that as long as I paid full whack tax on the UK property to HMRC that would be the end of the matter apart from for IVIE owing. Hrrumpf!

Maybe pushing on to Switzerland - Luzerne maybe for the first night if this isn't overly ambitious. The only thing fixed so far is lunch and Weihnachtsmarkt in Cologne!

I agree Penny ! Flip, though, with regards to your point that the rich bring in so much tax income, I discovered recently that for many top earners it is often not proportional to their income. You get this totally unfair system where the very wealthy manage to weedle away their % tax owing. Mitt Romney, for example, was found out to have a 'real' tax level of 14.1% whilst his cleaner is on something like 25%. As much as we should be grateful to the 'clever rich' for their tax revenue we should condemn this type of thing. if those at the top actually paid the correct amount of tax owing we'd all be in a better place right now....

I agree with some of what you say Flip...I'm no financial whizz kid...maybe I regard my mortgaged property in very simple terms ie. it's not mine until I've paid off the money owing on it... but still feel IVIE could so easily have just a bit more 'fine tuning' if it is truly to achieve as you suggest the 'fair' method of raising taxes from assets. I don't see why it is so hard to reach those who really are at the top of the pile and yet cleverly manage to pay so much less tax proportionally to those who are clearly much less wealthy in asset terms. I guess the French are having a go at this by finally raising the taxes to a whopping 75% for the really top earners..."vive la France!"... for people who have reached the giddy heights of their assets generating an ever growing mountain undert the watchful eyes of financial managers then this seems fair to me as there is only so much money a person needs to be secure... I like paying taxes...when they are fairly apportioned and properly spent on health care, education, infrastructure and especially helping those who are vulnerable and need help...it's civilised!!

Hmm FLip not sure I agree with all that... my UK property wasn't won through 'good fortune' but slog and sticking my neck out - and is still largely owned by the bank - it's a long term weight around my neck but I can't see another way of having any security in my old age. Actually that brings up another interesting question for fair IVIE demands; If a 'Fat Cat' resident in Italy has an overseas property which is 100% his/her asset because it's bought outright and then others of us have a large percentage of our 'asset' mortgaged so only own a % of that property outright does it seem really fair that we are deemed to have the same 'quantity' of asset? The 'Fat Cat' still comes out best! Personally I think a pension that someone holds in a financial product is just the same as my pension held in bricks and mortar and I have no other savings or pension-type product to prove the point. IVIE however doesn't seek out a .76% of its' residents' overseas maturing pensions annually - or does it? I think it's just way too general a tax to be fair and needs further fine tuning. It seems to me for example I should be able to take off the % of the property which is mortgaged for a start...or I'm paying some Italian taxes for an asset held by my mortgage lender aren't I?

It might be 'fair' to bear in mind that for many people who have spent their hard-working lives being 'self-employed', owning property  (and being mortgaged up the neck - so infact only 'partly' owning property with the bank as the other owner!) is a way of trying to create a small pension in the future where there might be absolutely no possibility of saving and 'paying into' a pension scheme. It is quite an exhausting and risky way of creating a pension but I think a very common one now. So owning more than one property cannot only be seen as the realm of the 'rich' - it is also a way for the 'struggling' middle class who are trying to take responsibility for themselves and their family. I do think it is 'unrealistic' and quite frankly 'simplistic' to  imagine everyone with multiple properties are swanning around with spare cash and accruing swimming-pool-laden homes around the world (which the tone of this thread seems to be suggesting is the 'imagined' case from certain quarters). For some of us it's a bit of an unknown 'shot in the dark' to create some stability in an unstable world. Why is it OK for a PAYE worker to pay into a pension scheme contributing to the wages of fat cat bankers but it isn't Ok for another self-employed person to nominate a property as their sole means of pension and not be worrried when that becomes threatened by things like IVIE that they hadn't budgeted for? I totally agree - let's get the fat cats who simply accrue and have nothing to worry about - they should be paying far more - but let's make sure we don't wipe out the hard working ones who aren't at this financial level but have got caught up in the frenzy of bashing the really rich who are not paying their way proportionally....

  Latest News

Stop press on IVIE and property values

You may not believe this but.... At less than a week prior to the deadline for paying income tax our friends at the Italian Revenue have completely re-worked the rules on calculating the value of properties overseas. This modification was made yesterday (Circular n.28/E) and published in the specialist papers today. The news is that when calculating the tax on overseas property held by Italian residents, instead of using the purchase price as the taxable value - as they have specified in every publication on the subject to date - for properties in the UK the reference value will be that of the relevant Council Tax band. For properties in other EU countries other reference values are given. Note that the Council Tax itself will not be deductible, but this change of taxable value should make an enormous difference in the vast majority of cases, especially as the values in England were determined way back in April 1991. So this is hugely good news for everyone, save the poor commercialisti who now have to redo their calculations.   Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 July 2012 21:42

I'm in Lazio (or almost -March is moving date). I already have a UK account who simply submits my tax form based on my calculations with a few suggestions of her own and who told me she'll issue with a certificate to prevent double taxation on the rental income in Italy. This costs less than £200 - so I'd thought the italian tax side (presently NO Italian based income at all) should be quite straightforward unless I start earning on Italy. I know there's the IVIE etc but that seems to be settling down now so theoretically I should be able to follow what pthers do with that. Or is that very wishful thinking...

I would happily do that but was told it could easily run into several €1000's per year.... I'll have to re-re-mortgage if I employ one!