Italy enacted a new law that significantly amends its rules requiring Italian resident individual taxpayers to report their foreign financial investment and accounts and other assets capable of generating foreign source taxable income.

SCOPE OF REPORTING

The fist significant change reduces the scope of the reporting. it eliminates the duty to report intra year transfers relating to reportable foreign assets, previously reported through sections III and I of form RW part of Italian tax returns. As a result, any transfers of money out of Italy for the purchase of foreign reportable assets, or into Italy as a result of a liquidation or sale of a reportable foreign assets, or foreign to foreign transfers relating to changes to the portfolio of foreign reportable assets, which occurred during a tax year, need not be reported.      

PENALTIES

The second significant change reduces the amount of applicable penalties. Under the old law, penalties could be assessed from a minimum of 10 percent up to a maximum of 50 percent of the value of unreported  foreign assets. Under the new rules, the penalties are reduced to 3 percent minimum and 15 percent maximum respectively. Furthermore, taxpayers can settle any audit out of court by paying a penalty equal to 1/3 of the minimum (that is to say, 1 percent of the value of unreported assets).

RETROACTIVE EFFECTS

The new rules have retroactive effect and apply to any situation in which penalties have not been assessed and paid yet.  Therefore, past violations that are no longer sanctioned under the new rules have become moot. 

BENEFICIAL OWNERS

The duty to report extends to taxpayers who are the "beneficial owners" of the reportable foreign assets, regardless of the fact that they may not be the owner of record or hold the legal title to those assets. The new law does not define the term "beneficial owner", but refers to the definition of the term that is provided by anti money laundering legislation. Accordingly, in case of companies, any shareholder, member or partner owning more than 25 percent of the company (by vote or value) is deemed to be a beneficial owner of the underlying investments or assets owned by the company. For other entities, such as foundations and trusts, beneficial owners are deemed to be the individuals who are the final beneficiaries or recipients of the entities’ assets.

COMMENTS

The elimination of the duty to report intra year transfers and the reduction of penalties for failure to report is surely good news.  

On the other side, the extension of the duty to report to the beneficial owners of a reportable foreign assets is very concerning. How taxpayers will handle their reporting obligations under the new rules is not easy to predict and will likely require further clarifications and guidance from the tax administration.

Indeed, the term beneficial owner in the context of the anti money laundering rules is very wide in scope, and its automatic use also for foreign assets reporting purposes might have unintended consequences. If applied literally, it would require any shareholder  owning more than 25 percent of the stock of a company to report his or her pro rata share of all of the company’s underlying assets held outside of Italy. While this might make sense in case of closely held companies or conduits that are set up for the sole purpose of holding and managing foreign financial investments and accounts, it may be completely impossible to handle in practice in case of straightforward commercial companies and other business entities engaged in trade or business.        

Further guidance on this issue is absolutely necessary