Do I have to file at home while living in Italy?
It depends on residence, not on address — except for US citizens and green-card holders, for whom the answer is yes regardless of where they live. We settle the residence question first, because every other answer follows from it.
Is there a treaty between my country and Italy?
Possibly, and the version in force for your year is the one that matters — protocols and multilateral-instrument positions change what a treaty does without changing its name. We check it against the authority rather than a summary. Where no treaty applies, domestic relief takes over.
I own property in Italy. Where is the rent taxed?
Where the property is. That is close to universal, and it usually arrives as withholding on the gross rent rather than as a return on the profit — which is why the election onto a net basis, where Italy offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
When do I become a Canadian resident again after living in Italy?
On the day the facts say you did, which is usually the day you re-establish the ordinary ties of living here rather than the day the aircraft landed. A lease or a purchase, the family's arrival, registration for provincial health coverage, a job start date, moving accounts and belongings back — those are the facts that fix the date, and they often cluster across a few weeks rather than falling on one day. Choose the date deliberately, record the evidence for it, and use the same date on every filing on both sides. A date chosen from documents is far easier to stand behind than one chosen in hindsight.
Do my Italian assets get a new cost base when I return?
Broadly yes. On becoming resident again, property you own is generally treated as acquired at its value on that day, so growth that accrued while you were non-resident falls outside the later Canadian computation. There are exceptions for property that stayed within Canada's reach throughout your absence. The practical consequence is that the valuation needs to be obtained at the time rather than when you eventually sell: a valuation of an Italian flat as at a date six years earlier, produced after the sale, carries very little weight. Get it while the market evidence is contemporaneous and keep it with the deed.
Do I have to keep filing in Italy after I move back?
Often, and for a reason that catches people out: Italian obligations attaching to property and to inheritance operate independently of income tax and are administered locally, so they can continue after you have left and after you have ceased to be resident there. If you keep the flat, somebody still has to deal with the local side of it. Leaving without arranging who does that is how arrears accumulate quietly and then surface on a later sale. Settle before you go who handles the Italian filings and charges, and get their confirmation in writing each year.
I kept my flat in Italy, what do I report now?
Two separate things. If the flat earns anything, the income goes on your home return computed under home rules and in home currency, with credit considered for Italian tax borne on that income. And the flat itself may be reportable as foreign property from the date your residence resumed, depending on whether it is held for your family's own use or to earn income. That reporting obligation attaches to the holding rather than to the income, so a flat that stood empty all year can still be reportable. Decide the basis in your first year back and apply it consistently after that.
Which country taxes my income in the year I move back?
Both, but not the same income. The year splits at the date residence resumed. Before that date your home country's claim is generally confined to its own source income; after it, the whole picture comes in. Italy's claim runs the other way across the same year. The trap is income that straddles the line — a bonus earned abroad but paid after you arrive, a severance, a payment for accrued leave. Those are allocated by reference to when the income was earned and the rules of each country, not by the date the money reached your account. Keep the payslips from either side of the move.
Should I close my Italian bank accounts before moving back?
Not reflexively. Keeping one is often sensible if you still hold property there, have local bills to pay or expect to return. What matters is that accounts held abroad carry reporting obligations of their own once your residence has resumed, separate from income tax and attaching to the account rather than to what it earns. Closing accounts in order not to report them is the wrong reason, and it does not reach the years they were open anyway. Make a list of every account, when it was opened and who else can sign on it, and hand it over with the first return after the move.
How is tax residency decided?
By facts, not by citizenship or the address on your post. Canada weighs your ties — a home available to you, spouse, dependants, then secondary ties like accounts and licences. The US adds a mechanical day-count test alongside its green-card test. India counts days present under its own thresholds. Where two countries both conclude you are resident, the treaty tie-breaker decides one residence: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality. See tax residency.
How do I file US taxes when I am married to a foreign spouse?
Three routes. File separately, listing your spouse as a non-resident alien — which needs either an identification number for them or the accepted notation where none exists. Elect to treat them as a resident and file jointly, gaining the joint brackets and accepting their worldwide income. Or file as head of household if you have a qualifying dependant, which some Americans abroad can do while married. The right answer turns on their income and their assets. See a US person with a non-resident spouse.
