heritagestanley

I probably need to get professional advice from a commercialista on this; but before I do, if anyone has any thoughts, I'd be most grateful. We are planning to install photovoltaic panels on our house in Italy. We were hoping to pay only half the cost, under the "sconto in fattura" option in the Ecobonus scheme. Unfortunately the Government is scrapping this option. As I understand it, it will in future be possible to benefit from the bonus only by way of detrazione fiscale over 10 years. We are not tax resident in Italy, and so will not be eligible. But now comes the wrinkle! Again as I understand it, at present there are two ways in which energy generated by the panels but not directly used at the time (or stored in batteries) can be sold into the grid. One, scambio sul posto, involves in effect buying, at a discounted price, electricity which is not generated by the panels directly at the time.The other, ritiro dedicato, simply involves paying in the normal way for all electricity bought and separately getting paid for all energy supplied into the grid. I have read that the former scheme is due to be ended this year, so that only the simpler ritiro dedicato method will then be available. But payments received under it will have to be declared to the taxman and will be subject to Italian income tax. That's fair enough: people who are not tax resident in Italy but who have Italian income must expect to be taxed on it. But that then prompts the cheeky question: since we will be paying some income tax will we be able to claim the detrazione fiscale to cover half the cost of the panels? It may well be that the answer is no, and that the Ecobonus rules restrict eligibility to tax residents. I'm raising the question here before going to a commercialista in case anyone on the Forum has been round this circuit before and has some experience that might help; and in case the issue that we've come across may be of interest to others thinking of going down the solar panel route.

Seldomseenkid

Hi
If you are not tax resident in Italy I don't see why you should pay tax in Italy. Surely it should be declared in the country where you do pay tax. For instance were you resident in Italy you would have to declare your income worlwide and be taxed on it accordingly so why not the other way round?