Italy proposes tax on savings hidden in safety deposit boxes

[Martin Everson]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-hidden-in-safety-deposit-boxes-idUSKCN1TD0G5
--- start quote

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy’s government may tax cash and other valuables locked away in safety deposit boxes held with banks, Italian newspapers said on Wednesday, quoting Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

The dailies quoted Salvini as telling a late-night TV program on Tuesday that he had been advised that safety deposit boxes in Italy held assets worth hundreds of billions of euros.

“Money that is substantially hidden,” he said, suggesting that deposit boxes were a way of hiding income and assets from the tax authorities.

Those who voluntarily declared their deposit-box holdings would be taxed at a low rate of about 15 percent, he added.

---- end quote


Trust me Italy won't stop there and EU already bringing in laws to register safety deposit boxes so they can raid them.

 

[PICCOLABESTIA]

hidden economy is huge in italy. understandable when you must pay 50% on your income.

it is just a propose for now.

the Lega party also propose the flat tax. a 15% flat taxation.

there is nothing in common between Lega and EU. The nazis at the EU hate this political party

 

[Suzy Emerald]

Italy needs to find money quick to make their budget fit. Else they will be fined by the EU. Like Greece they should never have been part of the EU in the first place.

 

[KJK]

Being part of the EU isn't Italy's real problem. Italy can benefit from doing business with the rest of EU easier, exporting goods and produce...

Also it is nonsense to imagine Italy like some shithole with mafia, lazy people drinking coffee and maybe growing wine... Sure, the country has its problems, Berlusconi politics didn't help and current politics isn't helping either... but there are many good people and good businesses in the country, and often they are just forced to be in the gray economy.

The real problem of Italy isn't being member of EU, real problems are
1) leaving lira and adopting the euro in 2002
2) big economic unequality between the north (Milano etc.) and the south (Sicily etc.)
3) big economic unequality between Italy as a whole and stronger eurozone countries (especially Germany and France).
4) irresponsible and populist political spending of Italian governments despite the points above

When you combine these points, it causes Italy to get into a deadly spiral. They have to use the same currency as Germany, salaries and pensions (retirement) are relatively high but the economy isn't as productive and cannot bring as much added value as other countries can. So Italy borrows money from ECB (i.e. Germany), the central bank kinda guarantees it, Italy has to repay more debt, that means borrow more money and get into more problems.

You cannot solve this with 50 % taxes, you cannot solve it even with 75 % taxes. Raising taxes will only make it worse. Taxing cash in deposit boxes is a) total nonsense b) useless and non-systematic c) probably will cost more money in bureacrats salaries than it will raise in taxes.

Such country should in my opinion reduce subsidies, reduce public sector salaries, lower taxes, allow more flexible job market, choose an area and direction to focus on.

 

[Martin Everson]

Now they announced possibly raiding safety deposit boxes those boxes are certainly all empty now so will yield nothing . So what next they go into peoples homes with currency sniffer dogs like at airports? How about metal detectors in peoples back gardens and pot plants?

Where does it all end?

 

[challenge]

100% agree with KJK.
I know plenty of people and also have distant relatives there. Pretty much I go to italy every summer since I was a kid and follow it closely, so I know the problems.
Nearly made the mistake of buying a villa+land from a friend a few years ago.
I still remember the first day I was stopped on the road by economic police with machine guns and bulletproof vests... was asking myself wtf I did? and they told me it's normal there, economic police with machine guns stopping people on the road lol already that gave me the idea of the situation...

It's fun as right now I'm on holidays in Italy, I must say it feels good on the countryside. Beautiful land, food, beaches, beautiful weather, always loved the Mediterranean.
If you live in the southern countryside/small towns away from the spotlight you can do whatever you want.
Italy is just a weird mix of very different regions that all hates each other.

But the economy is s**t. It always been s**t, they were always printing money, but they noticed only when the stupid left wing government decided to adopt euros.
There's too much welfarism. Too many civil servants doing nothing but printing/photocopying paper/chatting literally all day long, and yet nearly nothing in the public sector works.
Also blatant corruption. Nice to hear that the Italian President (his expenses+palaces+servants there) costs each year more than the White House...

Side note, after France, it's the perfect place where can you find plenty of Champagne socialists.

It's a bureaucratic hell that place.
For what I know nearly nobody respects the laws and rules. Especially local councils ones, as some are really stupid ways to grab some extra tax money. Yet each year something in the code change making it even more messy, and it results even more tax evasion. Their tax code must be by now a massive brain fart.
There's a crazy taxation on sport/supercars, yachts, helicopters, basically on every thing barely funny... cars over 200something hp have a massive yearly extra-tax for every hp over that even if they're worth a few thousands... a friend had to export his car collection as it was just stupid. That's on top of the already pricey road tax.

It's one of those countries that enjoys taxing money already taxed.

I had a friend showing me his tax return and once you started adding taxes he was being robbed something like 60/65% for his italian ltd... and on top of that he had to prepay taxes based on previous year, even if in that year he had no or small revenue... he was always struggling with cash flow just to pay taxes. He closed the company, fired everyone and relocated to Bulgaria every time I heard him he still tells me "best thing I ever done in my life, should've done earlier!"

 

[Suzy Emerald]

Very well said. Italy is just for vacation and shouldnt be taken very serious for the rest.

 

[deepocean]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-hidden-in-safety-deposit-boxes-idUSKCN1TD0G5
--- start quote

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy’s government may tax cash and other valuables locked away in safety deposit boxes held with banks, Italian newspapers said on Wednesday, quoting Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

The dailies quoted Salvini as telling a late-night TV program on Tuesday that he had been advised that safety deposit boxes in Italy held assets worth hundreds of billions of euros.

“Money that is substantially hidden,” he said, suggesting that deposit boxes were a way of hiding income and assets from the tax authorities.

Those who voluntarily declared their deposit-box holdings would be taxed at a low rate of about 15 percent, he added.

---- end quote


Trust me Italy won't stop there and EU already bringing in laws to register safety deposit boxes so they can raid them.

Thanks for the update, however keep us updates as soon as you hear more. I suspect the other countries, Netherlands Belgium Germany, may soon follow suit. Time to find a new solution for our boxes.

 

[Martin Everson]

All very sad for Italy I guess. I have some good memories of Italy. A few years ago I drove from Switzerland to Tunisia via Genoa using the Genoa to Tunisia ferry for last stage. All looked very beautiful. Then I decided on way back to travel by Ferry from Tunisia to Palermo in Sicily. After traveling round Tunisia I thought I have seen it all and decided to visit a friend in Zona Espansione Nord and..........

 

[fuorissimo]

This post is full of errors.

In Italy there is no proposal to tax safe deposit boxes (also because it is impossible to know the content). It has been proposed (but the proposal has already been canceled) to make a tax amnesty: you tell me how much money you have in the safe deposit box, you pay a certain amount of taxes, and they become clean. And anyway it was voluntary.

It has already been done (I have used it) for Italian foreign accounts (Swiss, etc. ..). I paid 5% of total taxation and I made the Swiss bank transfer to Italy, in 2009. ZERO PROBLEMS

ps. for Italy, returning to the lira means failure, becoming like Venezuela: it will never happen
p2. i'm italian citizen

 

[PassinBy]

> you pay a certain amount of taxes, and they become clean.

That seems... potentially problematic

 

[JoeyMess]

> you pay a certain amount of taxes, and they become clean.

That seems... potentially problematic

Happens in italy all the time. Every other year they propose a "condono" where you disclose something voluntary, pay a tax and thats it.
In italy everything works a bit differently. If you are a native you learn to navigate but if you are a foreigner and want to settle in italy.... good luck

PS: I am italian citizien too and I would not recommend anyone to move to italy.

 

[daniels27]

Happens in italy all the time. Every other year they propose a "condono" where you disclose something voluntary, pay a tax and thats it.
In italy everything works a bit differently. If you are a native you learn to navigate but if you are a foreigner and want to settle in italy.... good luck

PS: I am italian citizien too and I would not recommend anyone to move to italy.

You could be the friend of this Swiss guy in Italy:
https://www.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonntag/r...-sozialstaat-ein-erfahrungsbericht-ld.1871674
It is in German but pretty much explains it very well.

 

[JoeyMess]

You could be the friend of this Swiss guy in Italy:
https://www.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonntag/r...-sozialstaat-ein-erfahrungsbericht-ld.1871674
It is in German but pretty much explains it very well.

Good that I speak german too

A lot of it is true in that article. And thats what I meant, its difficult to understand if you didnt grow up here.
You could talk for hours of what is wrong in italy and what changes are needed... What I learned is that in the end nothing will ever change here haha

To end it with a Berlusconi quote: "Italy is now a great country to invest in... Today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."

 

[marioIT]

nah F* THAT if you're not native.
you will not survive by doing things by the book in italy.
if you start a one man ltd company in italy you'll keep ~35% of what you earn... and you'll get back pretty much 0 from the state as services...
and you must be very careful with cash flow as you'll pay next year tax in advance based on the previous year numbers...
if you don't get creative with expenses, law tricks etc
and if you get too much creative the tax agency will target you for years. so you'll better have nothing in your name if possible.
one thing is the law, one other thing is having a smart accountant that knows how far can push it.

also the whole italian girl thing is just a myth really... move east... it's much better in quality and quantity!
(Berlusconi had plenty of foreign girls in his italian harem. Dominican Republic, Montenegro, Egypt IIRC etc the italian ones were just troubles and just wanted the money)