Bureaucracy bondage

Bureaucracy is an evil that of necessity one has to deal with in any country, doubly so when you move from one country to another. When one of those countries is Italy, the bureaucracy factor disappears into the stratosphere. But like all things Italian, it's not a static, predictable thing - it's dynamic (not in an energetic sense) and mostly very difficult to predict. I even suspect that the bureaucrat dealing with whatever's in front of them feels very much the same way - heads: reject, tails: ask for another form, coin stands on its edge: approve.

But I shouldn't be critical or cynical - the research I'm doing for a book about moving to Italy asserts that the way I came into this country and got my permission to stay (permesso di soggiorno) is actually impossible, can't be done, against the law, don't even think of trying it. I can only assume that I was a benefactor of the other side of that Italian bureaucratic coin - the Italian character.

Anyway, my permesso di soggiorno, the very thing that allows me to stay here, expires on September twenty-something. (See here for a blog entry on the original application process.) Three months before the due date, I start making inquiries. Coincidentally, at the same time I'm in the process of updating the very section of aforementioned book that deals with residence permits. Turns out - after clarification of the contradictory terms of the law - that I can actually work here legally thanks to my matrimonial state with an EU citizen. This is a revelation to me, I actually thought I was prohibited from working. I guess I can now follow up on that list of job offers that have poured in over the past months.

The application process - along with the law - all changed last year, and now one submits the application through the Post Office. This fills me with trepidation. When I finally get all the paperwork together - 40 pages of it! - I have to hand it over to a clerk working for an organization that routinely loses things, some of them very big things, like the box I sent from the US two years ago that never arrived. On top of it, I arrive to hand in the application just as they're closing, meaning they're all anxious to head off for lunch. But what can I do? I hand it over, and hold my breath ... only to be pleasantly surprised ...

Two weeks later I get three things - a web site where I can check the status of my application, and a text message on our cell phone, which says I have an appointment at the immigration office on December 12th. The text message even agrees with what the web site says. And then a letter arrives, confirming what the other media have already said. I am wary to start changing my view prematurely, but I'm now looking at all of this with a cocked head, creased eyes, and a curious, questioning, twisted pursing of the lips - is the system actually ... working?

I can actually vouch for the fact that the bureaucracy is indeed working exactly as intended in another arena of the government's grasp on my life - taxes. Now based on everything I've researched - and believe me the info I've found would fill more than a small book - I have no idea where I'm actually meant to pay income taxes. But given my belief that I wasn't allowed to work here, I decide to file in the US (which has a worldwide taxation policy for its lucky citizens). Hours and hours later, head bulging with with the instruction of numerous regulations, I fill in my 40 forms and find out that despite my meagre earnings in 2007, due to my status as a self-employed individual, I owe - guess what? - self-employment tax. Off it goes, once again into that black hole that is the Italian Postal Service, and lo and behold it finds its way to its intended destination.

On the Italian side, things work differently. Maria worked here last year, and so has to file a tax return, even though employers have to deduct and submit taxes from each month's payslip (i.e. PAYE). But unlike the US, where a tax return form arrives at your doorstep comfortably in time to file before April 15th, there's no such notification in Italy. Now I acknowledge that this isn't such a big deal. What is a big deal is getting the right form, accurately filled out, from her prior employers. With the due date have sailed languorously by a few months ago, we still don't have it.

More intriguing to me, though, are the other taxes. Two in particular - rifuti and ICI. Rifuti is for waste removal, ICI is property tax. You don't get notified that it's due, when it's due, and how much is due. You just have to know these things. If you don't go and pay, you're likely to get a bill in a few year's time with substantial penalties and interest. Interestingly, Berlusconi decided to abolish ICI for primary homes, but there's no official announcement (as far as I'm aware), it just sort of acquiesces.

[Update - with a uniquely Italian flair for the deadpan-faced prank, our rifuti bill arrived in the mail the day after I posted this entry to the blog.]

As far as taxes go, I think I'll miss ICI, even though I never had to pay it. As I understand its machinations, you march down to the comune, tell them what you think your house is worth, they then work out what you owe. So effectively you're telling them what you think you should pay. Now if I absolutely have no option but to pay tax, this is the kind that I could live with.

As for rifuti, you follow a similar path down to the comune office, tell them how big your house is, and they tell you how much to pay. Now it's not a huge amount, but my (thankfully) spendthrift wife tries to save on everything she can, and after an appeal to the woman behind the counter, she got a discount!

And you wonder why I love it here.