Does anyone know if we open a bank account in Italy if there are tax consequences here. We will be living here for another year or so and want to transfer money to an Italian Bank.
Thanks

According to our bank, there are no tax consequences here (in terms of bank interest earned). Not that they pay a lot of interest. Our bank told us that any interest we earned here was a matter for our tax situation back in Australia.

Thanks Graeme...

We opened a bank account in Italy four years ago. We still live in the US, though are moving to Northern Italy at the end of the summer. There have been no tax consequences though you are asked on your US return if you have a foreign bank account. The biggest hurtle we found was in finding a bank that would open an account for a non-resident. We opened our account in Le Marche, which has a far smaller ex-pat community than much of Italy. We were our bank's first non-resident clients. I must say, we get very personal attention there.

If you have residenza, and have a resident bank account, interest earned is taxable in Italy. I had an Italian CD- when I became a resident the bank started withholding 27% tax on the interest earned. It was paying a good interest rate, so the net wasn't bad.

There are also non-resident bank accounts, which are non-taxable (except for the quarterly 8.55 euro govt flat tax on all accounts).