Yes, perhaps it was a bit OTT - but if you just want a holiday home there is absolutely no point obtaining residency just to save a few euros here and there. It will cause you grief - tax, IVIE, IVIFE, Dichiarazione dei redditi, commercialiste, British domicile, etc the cons really outweigh the pro's. I spend my time sorting out these problems for clients who sometimes unknowingly have got themselves into a mess, and the only fix is to 'emigrate' ie get your residency out of Italy. as someone who has nothing outside Italy - and earns here and pays tax here I am resident - and am being asked for 105% of my income in tax this year - so perhaps I am feeling a bit damning at the moment!

I know the tax is high, but how the hell does it get to 105% We're not going to have much choice as we won't have many ties back to the UK, or be spending enough time there to qualify

Oh I can well understand how modicasa feels at the moment. How can a country sort itself out when it just reels from crisis to crisis, with no concept of what forward planning is all about.
Let me just tell you two little local stories.
a) a busy coastal road, with lots of bends and narrow bits, but frequented by heavy goods traffic and tourist buses, has just had a new by-pass tunnel opened. 5 Kms. in length, work started 1982, complete July 2014, costs nobody really know (or are not telling) but approx. 150 million eurines. Good logic behind this, trffic was becoming really horrendous, especially during the summer months. Only trouble is, they got the measurements wrong, and the really heavy traffic doesn't fit; has not only to follow the old road, but pass through a village that was previously avoided by an older section of tunnel that has now had access blocked. Not only this, but where the tunnel ends, they forgot just how narrow the road becomes, creating a bottleneck. Solution? Spend another 90 thousand eurines opening to general traffic a dangerous srvice road intended only for maintenance vehicles.
b) yesterday evening, our local tourist office offered a very good jazz concert, F.O.C. in the main square, the sagrata of the parish church being the stage. A vey laudable effort. The trouble is, the August pro loco programme wasn't finalized, nor published, until about July 31st. In the meantime, well before this date, the parish priest had organized an organ recital, to start at 20:00 after mass. So you have the scramble through lighting and stage equipment to get into church for mass at 19:00; an organ recital inside competing with tune ups and 'prova prova' coming from outside, and then the sramble to get out of church again and seated for the jazz concert, where the front sets of course have all been reserved for local politicians.Ne'er mind, it's August, and so everything can wait until September anyway (including my utility bills I might add). I'm still waiting for a passport from the UK (since June 13th), my wife's pin number from INPS (since June 16th.) and a decision from INPS re Attendance Allowance (since April 10th).
and so we tootle along as best we can.
bye bye dicette l'inglese

You didn't seem to take my post badly modicasa but just to make it absolutely clear, I wasn't in any way criticising your post or saying it was OTT.

You have always been a great help to folk on here.

all the best

Unfortunately the state asks for the tax it decides you owe, whether it has any resembalnce to reality or not. This year, the studio si settore have decided that Italy is not in a recession and everything in the garden is rosy and therefore I should be earning pots of money. So, I get told to pay tax on what they think I should be earning, with a 50% deposit on what I havent yet earned this year That's how sensible the system is here!

Remember as a resident you also save on stamp duty when buying and capital gains on your own home.

Car registration either new car or old car you need residency.

Health Insurance ... you can run with EHIC for 1 year then you need to have italian health insurance.

I think if you plan to live in a country long term... go as a resident.

I was always under the impression that the limit for this was 3 months newcomo.

Do you have a reference for this?

all the best

Remember as a resident you also save on stamp duty when buying and capital gains on your own home.

Not necessarily. If you buy as prima casa, then you have 18months to take up residency in the same comune, in which case you can save on some taxes. However if you already have a prima casa you can't. If you sell your prima casa you have one year to buy another or lose the agevolazione. Capital gain is for 5 years on a second home, or for more than half the time you have been resident on a prima casa. It is not worth claiming residency to save money on a purchase, if you have no intention of actually spending more than 6 months a year in ITaly. They will catch you and the fines for what is basically perjury are now running at 10 to 15000 euros.

For students and seasonalk workers the EHIC is enough, provided you register yourself to the "schedario della popolazione temporanea" and you're not planning to become a long term resident.

Sources (in Italian):
http://www.asgi.it/wp-content/upload....2009.n.18.pdf (see point 3)
and:
Comuni d'Italia :: Leggi argomento - Cittadino UE disoccupato o pensionato e anagrafe

You CANNOT do this.

ah, that blue pencil appears to answer my question above.

Unless someone knows better.

Actually you can.

If you come to Italy as an independent, you need to show that you have no health burden on Italy.

Under EU rules you can get a form for upto 1-2 years health care in a EU country and the UK for example (previous country will pay any claims). This is for retired residents and for disabled/unemployed who go to another country to live more than 90 days. It is a health pass.

In some regions you can pay a fix fee for 1 year around 300 euros for Italian health care and this is like a EHIC card. I have done this for 2014.

I am resident, I have a tessera sanitaria card (which I paid a fix fee for 2014) and have access to the italian health system and is a EHIC I can use in UK / EU etc.

You can use an EHIC card until you have formal residency approved.

Buying into the healthcare for EU citizens unless you have residency is only an option in a couple of of regions Sicily, Lazio -I think- and possibly Tuscany. Unfortunately most of the other regions do not permit this. The fee is actually around €400 p.p.plus a percentage of your earnings. Not all regions have in the past bothered to apply the percentage.

If you leave the UK for more than 3 months you are no longer entitled to use the EHIC unless as you pointed out, you are a pensioner etc. You can no longer use a S1 form for up to 18 mnths of healthcare because the UK stopped issuing them in July and a EHIC is not enough to get residency except for the exceptions of course.

Murky water - under EU rules pensioners and disabled people are entitled to reciprocal healthcare - everyone else isnt - except for emergency care which is where your EHIC card comes in. It doesn't entitle you to a doctor or the bells and whistles. If you dont pay NI in the UK you cant have health care - the whole point is to stop people 'having the right' to health care where they dont pay their contributions. It obviously doesnt stop abuses of the system in any country, and there is always some overhang on expiries etc, but if you can't get assicurazione volontaria (which by the way Sicily no longer permits for EU residents and is only for extra comunitari) you must get health insurance

Thanks. Didn't know that Sicily had stopped allowing it.