Tax Residency

My suggestion would be to get proper professional advice.   Well intentioned though individual advice may be it cannot take into account all of your circumstances, and you could find yourself not complying with either French, Italian or even British taxation rules.It may not be as simple as the number of days you spend in a country other than France that determines whether you are liable for Italian rather than Franch tax on income.   UK regulations for example,  are based on the average number of days over the past four years plus considerations regarding residence, where your centre of economic interests is, whether you maintain a home in the UK etc etc.  The French rules may be similar in their complexity.An Italian commercialista may be familiar with Italian but not French rules - with the risk that you be advised to pay Italian income tax when the French authorities still regard you as laiable there.The international accountant we used is well versed in UK and Italian rules,  I am not sure if his knowledge extends to French rules too, but he will be able to state if he is able to advise you.   If you want his details please PM me. 

 If you invoice from France - even if in a webcloud - nobody would know that you are not spending more than 184 days outside France.  You're in Sicily, so frankly I would just say you are always here on holiday - if you have no Italian income and dont want to offset expenses against ITalian tax - or rather you dont want an Italian tax presence - I dont see the problem.  If you start working here though, its a different paio di maniche.  Any Sicilian commercialista would tell you the same! 

"One glance at my visa card or my Italian phone line statements shows where I'm really living"If you are really worried, then have a second person on your visa card [say a partner/friend/the dog], then nobody can easily find out who bought what.  [you can always destroy the second card once its issued]The phone bill doesn't say who made the call/used the line - it could be friends staying at the house I really don't think that there is a real chance of being 'found out' - though, like any 'good citizen', I would never advise people to bend the law.

 As with everything down here: the less you ask, the happier you are going to be.I think that you should be ok as long as you do not ask for residency. Who would know?The question is more if you have health cover etc. because this should come from France.Talk to a commercialista, I've just asked mine and he says that you should stay put and as long as you are registered for residency only in France, you will be ok.If you speak italian and want to know about the work situation in Italy, there are two Italian mailing-lists which I can recommend:LangIT for technical translators andBIBLIT for litterature translators. You can easily find them and sign up on the internet.Not all members are resident in Italy, but they all work to/from Italian, and you can get specific advice from somebody within the same sector.Good luck