This is the favourable opening of recent Ruling no. 524 of 25 October 2022, with which Italian Tax Authorities addressed the requirements for access to the special regime.
In the case analysed, the Applicant is an Italian citizen working abroad since 1998. As of 2015, the taxpayer holds either the position of CEO of a UK parent company and the role of director at a number of the Group’s subsidiaries, including an Italian one. The Applicant plans to move to Italy as of September 2022 in order to establish a new employment relationship with the aforesaid Italian company, maintaining the position of director and terminating any employment relationship with the UK parent company.
In providing a positive response, the Italian Tax Authorities point out that the autonomy of the contractual relationships within a corporate group does not exclude access to the regime “with no relevance to the circumstance that the employment activity was carried out with companies belonging to the same group“. In other words, it would not be a case of “return from secondment” and it is not necessary to verify any requirement of discontinuity. More in detail, it is not considered an obstacle that the Applicant maintains the administrative office at the Italian company and that the same role was held prior to the transfer to Italy.
With reference to the above, it should be noted that the Reply does not take into account what stated by Decision No. 1479/2022 of the Provincial Tax Commission of Milan (where it has been disallowed the Italian Tax Authorities’ interpretation related to the “return from secondment”).
It should be noted, however, that the Reply has the merit of dealing – favourably – with a case (i.e., the mobility of employees within a multinational Group) rarely taken into consideration by the but very frequent in the international context.
