The legislative decree 209/2023 provides for a redefinition of the rules governing the tax residence of natural and legal persons.
According to the new rules, individuals are considered to be resident in Italy for tax purposes if they have their domicile, residence or physical presence in Italy for most of the tax year, including fractions of days.
The concept of ‘residence‘ is defined, as the place where the person has his or her habitual abode.
Domicile is now defined for tax purposes as the place where a person’s personal and family relationships are primarily developed.
Registration in the Italian register of resident population, on the other hand, which was previously qualified as an autonomous tax residence criterion is no more relevant by itself. However it still applies as a rebuttable presumption of residence, it being therefore always possible to provide proof to the contrary.
Another major change consists in the relevance of the days of presence in Italy which is a sufficient condition when most of the year is spent in Italy, considering that even a single minute of the day is worth as much as a whole day.
The tax reform does not change Article 2, paragraph 2-bis, of the TUIR, which provides that Italian citizens who have been removed from the civil register and transferred to ‘black list’ countries are also considered resident, unless proven otherwise.
