The matter submitted to the attention of the Revenue Agency concerns an Italian citizen who transferred his tax residence to Thailand in January 2025, registering with AIRE and obtaining a ten-year residence visa. The same individual holds a securities account with an Italian intermediary, for which he had opted for the “risparmio amministrato” regime pursuant to Article 6 of the Legislative Decree 21 november 1997, n. 461 Legislative Decree No. 461 of 21 November 1997, with the intention of maintaining it unchanged even after the transfer of residence.
In the Ruling under review, the Revenue Agency stated, with respect to the two separate issues raised in the request for clarification, that:
- following the transfer of tax residence abroad, the switch from the so-called “risparmio amministrato” regime to the so-called “dichiarativo” regime (under Art. 5 of Legislative Decree No. 461/1997) is merely optional; and
- such a potential change of regime does not trigger taxation of latent capital gains on securities already held at the time of the change of regime or tax status.
In fact, the transfer of tax residence entails, ipso facto, the loss by the State from which residence is transferred of the taxing power over such capital gains that may eventually be realized, provided that:
- the investments are in qualified listed shareholdings;
- in the case of qualified unlisted shareholdings, the State of residence is included in the so-called white list;
- the bilateral tax treaty against double taxation concluded with the other State grants exclusive taxing rights to only one of the two Contracting States.
Within Italy’s various international tax treaties, different types of clauses can be found, including clauses that assign taxing rights over capital gains also to the State to which the taxpayer has transferred residence; such taxing power is based on the fact that the taxpayer, although having transferred residence abroad, was resident in the same State as the disposed company during the previous five years.
In the specific case of Thailand, however, the treaty contains no explicit reference to capital gains deriving from the disposal of securities held in the other Contracting State, with the result that only Article 13(3) of the bilateral treaty with Italy applies, which provides that: “Gains from the alienation of property other than that referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be taxable only in the Contracting State of which the alienator is a resident” (in this case, Thailand).
In this respect, each treaty independently defines the rights and obligations of the Contracting States (see Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) ), so that the absence of provisions in the Italy–Thailand treaty on the matter in question concerns exclusively the relationship between the two States mentioned, without affecting or having consequences on other bilateral treaties to which Italy is a party.
In short, the Italy–Thailand treaty does not contain ad hoc provisions, but this is an aspect to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with regard to the specific treaty in force (if any) between Italy and the State in question.
