With its recent answer to ruling of the 3rd June 2022, the Italian Revenue Agency ruled that a non-EU citizen who, in the period prior to transferring residence to Italy, was not registered with AIRE does not meet the requirements to exercise the option to extend the impatriate regime for a further five years.
The regulatory framework for the extension of the impatriate tax relief
The Internationalisation Decree introduced the ‘special regime for impatriated workers’, subject to regulatory amendments made by Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 34 of 30 April 2019, in force since 1 May 2019.
In relation to the regulatory changes that have redesigned the scope of application of the aforementioned facilitating regime starting from the 2019 tax period, with particular reference to the subjective and objective requirements for accessing the facilitation, the prerequisites for accessing the additional five-year period of facilitation, the temporal scope of application of the aforementioned provision, the regulatory changes concerning the requirement of registration in the registry of Italians residing abroad (AIRE), precise clarifications were provided in Circular no. 33/E of 28 December 2020.
As a result of the joint reading of the provision that allows the exercise of the option only to persons “who have already transferred their residence before the year 2020” and the provision that precludes this possibility to those who have moved after 30 April 2019, the extension for a further five years of the special regime for expatriate workers referred to in Article 5, paragraph 2-bis of the Growth Decree, is, in fact, reserved for those who have acquired Italian tax residence before 30 April 2019 (provided that on 31 December 2019 they are beneficiaries of the special regime).
It should also be noted that Article 1, paragraph 50 of the Budget Law 2021 restricts the number of potential beneficiaries of the option. In fact, although beneficiaries as of 31 December 2019 of the special scheme for impatriate workers, the following are in any case excluded from the possibility of exercising the option:
- those who have not been registered with AIRE;
- non-EU citizens even if they are beneficiaries of the special scheme for impatriate workers.
The position taken by the Agency with answer no. 321 of 3rd June 2022
In the present case, the applicant has dual Italian and Serbian citizenship. In 1999 she started working at a bank in Belgrade. Since 4 July 2016 she has been seconded to a bank in Italy to perform the task of “HR Senior Specialist”. Following the secondment and with the intention of moving to Italy, she applied on 12 July 2016 for a residence permit and, on 10 November 2016, for registration with the Anagrafe (Register of the resident population).
Once the secondment expired, she was hired by the Italian bank with an open-ended contract completely independent from her previous employment relationship, starting her new activity permanently in our country from 1 July 2018. On 22 January 2018, she was sworn in at the Italian Embassy in Belgrade, where she had also applied for citizenship (2013), with subsequent transcription of the relevant decree of the Minister of the Interior in the registers of the Municipality of Milan on 26 June 2018.
Since 2017, and for the following five years, he has been benefiting from the scheme for impatriate workers. Having said that, she asked whether she can exercise the option that would allow her to extend for a further five years, starting from 1 January 2022, the preferential taxation considering that, prior to the transfer, she was not registered with Aire.
On the basis of the aforementioned rules and the characteristics of the case, the Agenzia delle Entrate has therefore established that a non-EU citizen who, in the period prior to transferring residence to Italy, was not registered with AIRE (having acquired Italian citizenship in 2018, after moving to Italy in 2017), does not meet the requirements to exercise the option.
Please note that, with the reply to ruling n 187 from 2020, the Revenue Agency also denied the possibility to submit a supplementary declaration in order to enjoy optional tax regimes (such as the impatriate regime) for the prior years.