Always keep your Italian Receipts

Our lovely estate agent Paola gave me lots of useful advice which I always heeded. On piece was to always keep my receipts since ‘Italian systems are notably unreliable ‘.

Earlier this year a registered letter arrived at our UK house. It was from our local commune in Italy and ran to 3 pages. It basically accused me of not paying IMU in 2012 and 2017 and went into detail of a the draconian measures used in Italy in cases of tax avoidance.

On my next visit I went to see ‘Smiler’ (my nickname for Mauro who is undoubtedly the most miserable man in the country!) . I produced my receipts, which thanks to Paola, I had kept. 2017? No problem. However 2012 showed a ‘discrepancy ‘! Of the 5 items on the IMU bill the commune had only received 4. €130 was missing! As there was no question that I hadn’t paid the bill I thought the matter was settled. Not at all! It turned out that it was my responsibility to establish with the bank where the missing euro had gone*.

So you see it’s very wise to take Paola’s advice and KEEP ALL YOUR RECEIPTS otherwise you may well be forced to pay twice!

*At the time of writing the bank, which has undergone 3 takeovers, has been unable to identify where the €130 went!

"*At the time of writing the bank, which has undergone 3 takeovers, has been unable to identify where the €130 went!"

Ask them for it back - they'll soon find it then!