Order No. 24972 of 3 September 2026 also confirms that prior taxation of funds does not remove foreign asset reporting obligations.
Italy’s Supreme Court has reaffirmed that, under the domestic rules applicable before 2024, registration in the Italian resident population register (Anagrafe della Popolazione Residente, or APR) for most of the tax year was sufficient to establish Italian tax residence, even where a taxpayer relied on substantial personal and professional ties abroad.
The dispute concerned penalties for failing to disclose foreign financial assets in quadro RW, the foreign asset reporting section of the Italian income tax return, for the 2008–2010 tax years.
The taxpayer remained registered as resident in Italy but was married to a San Marino resident, held a permanent residence permit there and had worked for a San Marino social security institution since 2007. The regional tax court ruled in her favour, accepting that her factual residence and centre of interests were abroad.
The Supreme Court overturned that decision. Under Article 2(2) of the Italian Income Tax Code, as applicable to the years concerned, registration in the APR, domicile in Italy and residence in Italy under the Civil Code were three alternative grounds for establishing tax residence. Meeting the registration criterion was therefore sufficient in itself: evidence of factual residence abroad could not displace it.
The Court also rejected the relevance of the source and previous tax treatment of the funds held abroad. These included proceeds from the sale of Italian property and an end-of-service payment that had already been taxed in Italy.
The reporting obligation under Decree-Law No. 167/1990 serves an independent monitoring purpose. Its application does not depend on establishing an additional income tax liability on the amounts concerned. Consequently, the Italian origin of the funds and the tax already paid did not excuse the failure to complete quadro RW.
Having found that no further factual inquiries were necessary, the Supreme Court decided the case on the merits and dismissed the taxpayer’s original challenge to the penalties.
The decision is particularly relevant to disputes concerning tax years before 2024. For those years, factual ties abroad could not, by themselves, overcome the domestic residence criterion based on APR registration. The order does not address the application of tax treaty residence rules.
For tax years from 2024, the statutory framework changed: Legislative Decree No. 209/2023 made registration in the APR for most of the tax year a rebuttable presumption of residence. The Court’s conclusions on the former registration rule must therefore be read in their historical context. The distinction between taxation of funds and foreign asset reporting remains central to the ruling. Legislative Decree No. 209/2023.
Case reference: Italian Supreme Court, Tax Section, Order No. 24972, published on 3 September 2026.