With reply no. 3/2022, the Revenue Agency has clarified that an employee of a Swiss employer with activities carried out in Italy in remote working, who proves to have had effective residence in Switzerland before moving to Italy, can take advantage of the tax relief for employment income produced in Italy starting from the tax period 2022, in the transfer of tax residence to Italy, and for the following four tax periods.
The request from Switzerland
The appeal arises from the request of an Italian citizen, repatriated from Switzerland, concerning the possibility of benefiting from the special regime for inpatriated workers (provided for in Article 16 of Legislative Decree no. 14 September 2015, n. 147). The Taxpayer has been resident in Italy since September 6, 2021, where she carries out her work remotely. The thesis presented by the applicant is based on the Convention against double taxation between Switzerland and Italy, whose art. 4 par. 4 provides for the split year criterion, according to which tax residence would be acquired in a timely manner from September 2021. According to the applicant’s thesis, therefore, having worked mainly in Italy from 06.09 to 31.12 of 2021, the tax reduction of 70% of wages would be due starting from this period, and not from 01.01 of 2022.
Resolution of the Revenue Agency
This approach was rejected by the Revenue Agency, according to which, instead, the person must be considered resident in Italy starting from 2022 on the basis of the provisions of internal legislation only, and not on the basis of the conventional data. In fact, the Agency pointed out that, in the context of the facilities for expatriate workers, for the assessment of the person’s Italian residence it is necessary to refer only to the provisions of art. 2 of the TUIR, and therefore, to the fact that the person himself has his/her residence or domicile in Italy for most of the tax period, or is registered in the registry of the resident population.
The interpretative line proposed by the Revenue Agency is, however, in contrast with another response to ruling no. 495/2019 in which the prevalence of the conventional data is expressly admitted. To argue that it is necessary to consider only the internal legislation would mean, for example, allowing a person enrolled in the Italian registry in the first part of the year but who has maintained the center of their interests abroad, to benefit from the benefits for repatriated workers despite the effective non-residency.