Non-national resident has undeclared property and income abroad

F

federico141168

Registered User
Messages
2
Hello,


I would like to ask a question to the forum in relation to an article that I read in a newspaper in the weekend and has to do with undeclared foreign assets.

I wonder if I would have to be worried

This is my situation:

More than 10 years ago I moved from Italy to Ireland. I work as Payee and still I’m Italian citizen. A few years before moving to Ireland so about 15 years ago I had bought a house in Italy and go there 2 or 3 times every year.

The house generates no income since it’s not rented however I rent out a small farm field to my neighbor and receive a payment of about 1500€ / year for that. The contract
is registered with the Italian revenue system so I pay taxes and do the tax return there for this.

Also I pay the property tax in Italy for the house (which is normally higher than in Ireland). I’m a bit worried because I wonder if I should have declared these assets in Ireland too and how even if I pay already the taxes in Italy for the rent of the field and the house generates no income.

This below is what I found after some further research website it says:

...................................................................
Disclosures of Foreign Income and Assets
...................................................................
New Restriction of Qualifying Disclosures

The Finance Act 2016 includes a measure to preclude a person, as and from 1 May 2017, from making a disclosure that would otherwise be a qualifying disclosure if the disclosure relates to "offshore matters".


As and from 1 May 2017, it will no longer be possible to obtain the benefits of a qualifying disclosure if matters included in the disclosure relate directly or indirectly to any of the following:

an account held or situated in a country or territory other than the State

income or gains arising from a source, or accruing, in a country or territory other than the State

property situated in a country or territory other than the State.
........................................................................

Thanks to anyone who will reply

Federico
 
Federico

I don't know the technically correct position, but you should not worry about it.

This legislation is aimed at catching Irish people who are hiding money earned in Ireland abroad.

They won't be spending time on small amounts and non-nationals.

There is a double-tax treaty with Italy, I assume, which is designed to make sure that income is not taxed twice.

Brendan
 
As Brendan has said, there's a Tax Treaty between Ireland and Italy which prevents double taxation (in effect you typically get credit for the Italian tax against any Irish tax).

However, on the basis that you are (in all probabilty) Irish resident / Italian domiciled, and therefore only taxable on "foreign" income to the extent that it is "remitted" (i.e. brought) into Ireland, the Italian stuff is unlikely to be taxable in Ireland unless the money is being sent to Ireland. But even if it is sent to Ireland, it's only the incremental piece of Irish tax that arises over and above the Italian tax (I'm making the wild assumption that tax levels are higher here than in Italy!).
 
You're reading too much into that piece about disclosure. It seems to be a case of an audit on someone and what revenue will allow and not allow under their disclosure rules.

You've no rent from the house, the fact of having the house is not hiding anything. The rent is being properly treated in Italy, as in you're declaring it and presumably paying Italian tax on it. It's a very low amount in any case so I wouldn't worry about it. The only thing I would suggest is you don't send the money back to Ireland, then you don't 'remit' it, which might be a basis for some more Irish tax on rental income. So what you do is when you go back home on your holidays you withdraw it and spend it in Italy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top