Self-Employed

Unless you are already qualified, can I suggest you consider obtaining a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate?Have a look at http://icalweb.com/cms/index.php?gclid=CN2D_5uumZwCFQcTzAodCQKQhQ for some ideas.

 It depends how you are going to teach.  If you are employed by the language school you dont have to worry as they will pay your INPS and other contributions and sort it out from your salary.  If you are merely working for the school you will need to get a partita IVA, and a commercialista who will sort out everything for you.  As soon as you are self employed and working or not you will have to start paying INPS at about 700 euros per quarter.  A partita IVA costs about 200 euros to set up, and you will have to give invoices for all your work, with a 'ritenuto di acconto' which I still dont understand but is easier to get your commercialista to do it or explain it. If you are a self employed teacher you can teach the European PON courses which pay much better than teaching for a language school but you must have a certificate - either a CELTA or a TEFL or you wont be accepted.  If you are planning just to teach without qualifications you are frankly better off being employed by the school as your wages will be much lower. 

I am self-employed and depending on the category (in my case deemed professional) the rules seem to change slightly.   I became self-employed January 2008 and registered with Agenzia delle Entrate and for INPS at that time.  My commercialista set everything up for me.  I paid nothing until June 16th 2009 when my Accountant was able to declare my income for 2008.  I then paid 20% of my net income (net after deduction of acceptable costs i.e. 40% of my car costs, 50% of some utility bills as I work from home, plus necessary "tools") in tax and 24.7% in INPS.  I also had to pay an amount of INPS for 2009.The relevence of €30,000 is that if your income is below €30,000 you don't have to charge VAT and the book-keeping is simpler.  Over this amount and you have to charge VAT which in my case, like you, I am only working for one employer and it is my professional skills rather than a product that I am selling thus difficult to increase the agreed wage by the current VAT rate if they are unable to claim back the VAT (my "empoyer" was not able to).  It is definitely much easier and cheaper if you can be employed - I did not have the option and had to accept being self-employed.  Good luck and would recommend strongly you talk to a Commercialista.

 Hi,I am self-employed as a translator/interpreter here in Italy, and in my experience is  you should not be too put off by going self-employed.Opening a partita iva as a "professional" (someone who lives off his brain...) does not cost anything, what is important is that you select the category of activities with caution. I.e. mine are "translation/interpreting" and "other IT services" as I also do the occasional website. I can also teach languages, if I want.  All you have to do is go to the Agenzia d'Entrate and fill out a form.At the same time you are OBLIGED to register with the INPS "gestione separata" where you pay as stated above,  a percentage of your annual income for a future (very small) pension.There are various "regime agevolati" if you earn below 30 000 euro/year, this means that you should not claim vat on your bills, bookkeeping is simpler, but you will not be able to detract any expenses. So it really depends on what you do and what your work/invoicing-pattern looks like. If you opt for this simple regime, you may also do without a commercialista, most tax offices will have tutors, you can have one assigned to you who will help you with tax matters (allthough I have heard all types of horror stories..)I am in normal regime, which means that I apply 4 % inps and 20 % vat to all my bills. At the same time I detract 20 % ritenuta d'acconto which is just tax paid in advance (the italian tax office always makes you anticipate as they don't believe that one is able to manage this by one-self).I pay the VAT every 3 months (my commercialista takes care of that) and taxes etc. in 5 rates from july to november.Employing self-employed people has a lot of advantages to the employer, as they are cheaper and more flexible.For you as well as you can manage your own work-life, only thing you need to take into account is when negotiating salary, is that 50% of your invoiced amount will go to taxes/inps.The translator's association once made a calculation taking into account money/time spent on training, TFR and extra salary paid in December and made out that to have the same 1000 euro net/month as an employed italian, a self-employed professional would have to invoice 2500 euro/month.The good thing about the simple tax regime is that you'll be exempt from the "studio di settore", which is a real nuisance, I can tell you - and one of the reasons why almost everybody end up employing a commercialista.However, look around for someone who gives you a decent offer and who knows your category as a professional. I had to teach mine the basics of translation invoicing, but now he takes care of everything and never made me subject to tax controls.Good luck with it,