A New Definition of Permanent Establishment in Italian Domestic Income Tax Law

Volume 5 No 3    |    Read Article

By Stefano Loconte and Linda Favi (guest authors)

Italian domestic tax law has adopted the permanent establishment (“P.E.”) concept when determining whether business profits of a nonresident are taxable in the absence of an applicable income tax treaty. Earlier this year, changes to the definition of the term broadened the scope of activity constituting a P.E. Effective January 1, 2018, (i) a digital P.E. is treated as a fixed place P.E., (ii) the scope of the specific activity exemption has been scaled back, (iii) an anti-fragmentation rule has been adopted applicable to groups of companies, and (iv) the scope of an agency P.E. has been broadened. Stefano Loconte and Linda Favi of Loconte & Partners, Milan, explain the new rules.    See more →