Non-cumulation of Italian tax incentives: could Ruling No. 16/2025 open a "loophole"?

It is well known that Italy is strengthening its position as an attractive centre for European and non-European HNWIs, also following some recent regulatory changes "across the Channel". In this respect, our country offers a wide range of favorable tax regimes for individuals wishing to relocate to Italy. 

The Italian Revenue Agency, also to facilitate the understanding of the various attractive regimes in the Italian system, during the years issued several documents aimed at providing clarifications and technical observations. Among the various guidelines, Circular Letter No. 17/2017 drew taxpayers' attention to the lack of cumulative effect of the various favorable tax regimes, as also provided for in the tax legislation. 

Now, with Ruling No. 16/2025 of 28 January 2025, the Italian tax authorities seem to interpret some recent regulatory changes to the impatriate tax regime as an opportunity to overcome the previous prohibition on the cumulation of various favorable regimes. In particular, the new Italian impatriate tax regime provided for in Article 5 of Legislative Decree No. 209 of 27 December 2023 (hereinafter the "new impatriate tax regime") could be “combined” with the tax regime for teachers and researchers provided for in Article 44 of Legislative Decree No. 78 of 31 May 2010. 

According to the Revenue Agency, this interpretation is justified because the "new" impatriate tax regime does not expressly exclude the possibility of applying several favorable tax incentives at the same time. This exclusion was provided for by the same legislator in the "former" regime, as also pointed out by the Tax Agency in the Circular Letter No. 17/2017. In fact, the application of the impatriate tax regime - pursuant to Article 16 of Legislative Decree no. 147 of 14 September 2015 (the “former regime”) - had been expressly deemed inappropriate with the simultaneous application of the tax incentives provided for "teachers and researchers" by Article 2 of the Decree of 26 May 2016. 

If we were to adopt this new approach to the matter, it would seem legitimate to ask whether the tax administration could also consider the lump sum tax regime provided for in Article 24-bis of the ITCA (the so-called "flat tax regime") to be cumulative with the "new impatriate tax regime", since so far - contrary to what is provided for in the 2017 budget law - there does not seem to be any regulatory "support" to exclude it. It should be noted, in fact, that the impatriate tax regime favors work income produced in Italy, while the flat tax applies to foreign-sourced income. 

In fact, the 2017 Budget Law expressly prohibited the cumulation between the flat tax regime and the former impatriate tax regime, which - according to the approach adopted by the Financial Administration in Ruling No. 16/2025 - could be considered 'waived' with the application of the new regulatory provision. Is this an 'oversight' in the monitoring of existing rules? Certainly, this position will be kept under review in the coming months.