8579 Taxes

[quote=Jeremy Dyson;80458]We have recently completed the purchase of a uninhabitable house in the Abruzzo region which we hope to demolish and rebuild in the future and have been told that we now liable to pay ICI and IRPEF taxes. The name of an accountant has been given to us in Pescara but he charges 70 euro each for the ICI tax calculation and 130 euro each for the IRPEF tax making a total of 400 euro. Does this seem expensive to you or am I being unreasonable!! We don't speak any Italian and would be grateful for any advise. Many thanks.[/quote]

yes,it is rather expensive, if you imagine that our accountant charges us Euro 2.850,00 p.a. to do all our business accounts, tax and vat returns,ici,speak with/fight with the various agencies when necessary etc on our behalf.
but do remember if i turned up at the door of a professional (lawyer/architect/accountant) here or even in the uk with a really tiny request (write me a legal letter/make me a little drawing/just calculate my ici please)i would expect to pay thru the old nose for it.There are local centers(public) usually advertised in your municipality itself called CAF (centri assistenza fiscale) who'll do it if not free but for a tiny fee,they do it for pensioners and anyone who requires etc.if on the other hand you think you'll be requiring a permanent business accountant to handle your affairs thats another kettle of fish and you'd be better off going with an accountant.

To have our ICI calculated by an accountant last November costed us 24 euros only.

The Commercialista fees sound far too expensive to me, I paid 22 euros for the work this year. Of course the actual ICI payable depends on the area you are building, even if it is demolished, based on the sq meters of the land that is registered as edificabile - that is land that you can apply for planning permission to build on. If your house is not in Pescara, I would get another quote from a local Commercialista nearest to your house. You will always find one in every large village or small town.

Thank you all for your replies and yes I agree that a lawyer in the UK would be expensive for any type of work. The nearest town to where our house is is Penne so if anyone has anyone they could recommend I would be very grateful. Many thanks.

How uninhabitable is uninhabitable? If you are lacking roof, etc, then you shouldnt have to pay any ICI. The house should be declared uninhabitable, at the ICI office in the municipio, with accompanying photos and the payemnts will kick in only when you have rebuilt the ruin. With no ICI to pay, there should be no notiona income from the property, so - unless you are tax resident in Italy - no IRPEF return to file either. I would take a couple of snaps and get down to the town hall. Good luck

As you can see from photo's attached our "house" is definately a ruin, and uninhabitable. But we had the princely sum of E46 per annum to pay with a late payment fine of E1, because like you we thought we would have nothing to pay...But when we bought the building we had turned the ruin from being soley used as a agricultural/rural classification to urban which attracted a 50% commune tax. So we had to pay.
Sprat
P.S We didn't need anyone to work out our ICI just turned up at commune and the guy there did it for us.

I just showed up and paid the ICI as well :-)
but...now I guess I need to find an accountant to file income taxes - don't think I could manage that one on my own ;-)! We had no income in Italy last year, but did own a home for part of it...so far, any of the "international tax accouontants" I've found are used to dealing with handling your finance in multiple coutries...seems what I need would be something more simple than that (?) I mean, how much income tax can I owe with no income and a very modest home? (hopefully not too bad!) I hesitate to pay a lot for filing! (but would prefer someone who has email access so I can file from abroad and speaks a bit of English to make my life easier!)

What I need in a nutshell is, who works out the ICI & IRPEF tax, where do you pay it and as someone kindly mentioned finding someone in Penne who speaks English who could help. Maybe buying the house is the easy bit!!

well...all I know is the ICI...I walked into the Post Office and asked for the forms (one for me, one for my husband) and then we went to the internet cafe and looked up the rate for our comune...and then we sat with a few beers :-) and filled them out and crossed our fingers...and walked back into the P.O. to pay...and then walked over to the Comune Tax office with our reciept that we paid and gave it to them to file...they made a photo copy and gave us back our recipt. who know now if I did it corectly ;-) but know one made odd faces or laughed or anything :-) so I figure that's always a good sign. no clue now about the IRPEF.

What's IRPEF? Forgive my stupidity? As to ICI we got blagged for our first ICI bill whilst visiting the comune over something else and this guy said " Hey you you haven't paid your ICI bill. He worked it out took him 3 mins it was peanuts and we assume he will do the same again next year. Can anyone confirm whether or not it is the comune that works it out or you need to go to a comercialista.
Sometimes I think I have all the facts and then someone says something else and it all changes!
Sprat

[quote=pilchard;80645]Sometimes I think I have all the facts and then someone says something else and it all changes!
Sprat[/quote]

Yup, know just what you mean!

We went to the comune when it was time for our first ICI payment. The lovely lady there (who was trying to deal with our hopeless lack of Italian) rang the main office to ask about the calculation but was told they couldn't work it out for us because it included a part year (we bought in the June).
So we looked up the calculator online and did our own calculation.
Goodness knows if we are doing it right but it seemed simple enough not to need outside assistance (and as well as that, due to our lack of language, we couldn't have spoken to a commercialista to tell him what we needed in any event).
We will need to use one this year though as we need to file income tax forms etc- EEK!
Lesley

Thanks to all the replies, apparently the info we have regarding the IRPEF tax is quote " a form of tax declaration, it is made on the basis of what you earn over in Italy. If you only earn a property but do not have an income here there is a minimal amount to be paid". I suppose when we next visit Pescara is to find the comune and take photo's of the house and see what they say about the valuation. In the meantime we will probably use someone who has helped with setting up the bank account who we were pleased with.