UK PUBLIC SECTOR PENSIONS, BREXIT AND ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP

I was watching a nature documentary with my son the other day and we were watching the foraging activities of grizzly bears in North America.  

It was interesting from the perspective that they will forage across huge distances in search of different food types to ensure they get the proteins, minerals and vitamins  they need to stock up for the long winter ahead of them. 

 

In some ways this behaviour reminded me of the foraging that I sometimes embark upon, across the internet, to ensure that you have all the information you need to weather the seasons ahead. We have lived through some spring and summer seasons, metaphorically speaking, but politically we seem to be entering autumn and possibly winter, depending on your point of view of course. I imagine for those people I know who voted BREXIT, that this is a new dawn. However, I will stick with my view for the purposes of this blog.  

 

FORAGING 

 

I was foraging through the internet last week in search of some information on UK pensions and happened to stumble across an Italian fiscal website which had a summary of the Italian tax treatment of pensions from around the world. 

 

To my surprise, my eyes fell across the following statement in relation to pensions paid from Argentina, UK, Spain, the USA and Venezuela:

 

'Le pensioni private sono assoggettate a tassazione solo in Italia, mentre le pensioni pubbliche sono assoggettate a tassazione solo in Italia, se il contribuente ha la nazionalità italiana.'

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

 

In short, and what caught my eyes was specifically in relation to the tax treatment of public section pensions in Italy.

 

.......le pensioni pubbliche sono assoggettate a tassazione solo in Italia, se il contribuente ha la nazionalità italiana.' 

 

(Public sector pensions would be those defined as local Government, doctors, nurses, police, firemen, armed forces, teacher etc).

 

If you are a holder of one of these types of pensions and are resident in Italy, you will likely know that under the double taxation treaty with the UK, in this case, that public sector pensions are only taxed in the UK, for those who are no longer UK resident and are therefore not subjected to taxation in Italy. 

 

However, the above statement  implies that if you are an Italian national then this pension would be taxed in Italy. (Taking into account any double taxation credit that would need to be applied). Therefore, Italian tax rates would apply and the pension would not benefit from the application of the UK personal allowance, in Italy, either. 

 

This is clearly important, given BREXIT, and the number of people who were considering or making application for Italian citizenship as a means of resolving the issue of residency.  Italian citizenship would define you as an Italian national and tax would apply to a UK public service pension. 

 

DOUBLE TAXATION TREATY

 

Without wanting to take the words of a website as hard evidence, I did some more foraging and can confirm the words of the double taxation treaty (UK/Italy) as follows:

 

(2) (a) Any pension paid by, or out of funds created by, a Contracting State or a political or an administrative subdivision or a local authority thereof to any individual in respect of services rendered to that State or subdivision or local authority thereof shall be taxable only in that State.

(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of sub-paragraph (2)(a) of this Article, such pension shall be taxable only in the other Contracting State if the individual is a national of and a resident of that State.

 

THE BREXIT PROBLEM JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER

 

So, here we have another BREXIT problem which has now arisen as part of further investigation.   I would suggest that Italian citizenship, for those with UK civil service pensions, needs to be thought out carefully and planned financially, before any action is taken.