Do I have to file at home while living in Italy?
For most people the answer turns on whether the ties that made them resident have actually ended. For a US citizen or green-card holder it does not: the return is due in Italy exactly as it would be at home. Everything else on the file follows from which of those you are.
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.
Will my Canadian pension be taxed in Italy or in Canada?
Often in both, in a defined order, with one country giving credit for the other. Pensions paid out of Canada to someone resident abroad are generally taxed at source by withholding before the money leaves, and Italy then taxes the same payment as the income of a resident. The treaty decides which country has the first claim and which must relieve the double charge. Different kinds of pension, employment pensions, government-service pensions and state social security, can fall under different articles of the same treaty. Reading the correct article for each payment is the whole job, because the answer is not uniform across one retiree's income.
Why is tax taken off my pension before it reaches my Italian account?
Because the payer is obliged to withhold on payments to a non-resident, and withholding happens at the payment rather than at the year end when your actual liability is known. It is a collection mechanism, not a final assessment. Two things follow. The payer withholds on the basis of the address and residence information it holds, so an out-of-date record produces the wrong deduction. And where a treaty gives Italy the taxing right, or reduces the rate, relief usually has to be claimed, either by telling the payer in the prescribed way or by filing to recover the excess afterwards.
Can I get the withholding on my pension reduced?
In many cases yes, but not automatically, and not for the past unless you act. Relief under a treaty is claimed rather than granted by default: the payer needs evidence of where you are resident and of the article you are relying on, and until it has that it will withhold at the domestic rate. Where tax has already been over-withheld, the route is a claim for repayment rather than an adjustment by the payer. Both routes are worth doing in the same exercise, because a retiree usually has several payers and each holds its own record of you.
Do I have to tell Canada or the US about my Italian bank account?
Probably, and the obligation is separate from whether you owe any tax. Both systems require residents or citizens to report accounts and assets held abroad once the holdings pass the reporting threshold, and the report is triggered by holding them rather than by earning anything on them. For Americans that means FBAR alongside the return; for Canadians who remain resident, T1135. Retirees are caught by this more often than they expect, because a local current account is the first thing you open on arrival and the last thing you think of as a foreign asset.
I inherited my parents flat in Italy, does retiring there change the tax?
The inheritance and the retirement are two files. Italian inheritance and property taxes operate independently of income tax and are administered locally, so what is owed on the flat began when you inherited it and does not depend on your becoming resident. Moving in changes the income picture rather than the property one: a flat you occupy yourself produces no rent, a flat you let does, and your home country will want to see the same asset again in its own terms. The order we work in is the property first and the income after.
Is my US Social Security taxable if I retire to Italy?
Social security payments are usually dealt with by an article of their own in a tax treaty rather than by the general pensions article, and that article allocates the taxing right between the two countries. So the answer turns on the specific treaty text rather than on a general rule about pensions, and it can differ from the answer for a workplace pension paid to the same person by a former employer. As a US citizen you continue to file at home in any case, so the practical question is which country taxes the payment first and how the other relieves it.
Is double taxation illegal?
It is legal. Two countries can each have a valid claim on the same income — one because the income arose there, the other because you live there — and nothing prohibits both from exercising it. What exists instead is relief: tax treaties allocate the claim, and domestic law gives a credit for foreign tax paid. The relief is not automatic, though. It is claimed on a return, and unclaimed relief is simply lost. See how double taxation is relieved.
How do I reduce withholding tax on a cross-border payment?
Before the payment, not after. Where a treaty gives a lower rate, the payer needs your residency declaration in hand to apply it; where the statutory rate would over-withhold on a gross amount, an advance application can authorise a reduced deduction on a net or estimated basis. Once the money has moved at the full rate, your remaining route is an elective return or a refund claim, which recovers the same cash far more slowly. See withholding refund and recovery.
