Hit Italy's flat-tax revenue cap, working at 60% capacity because earning more is pointless: what's the next move?
27M, based in Italy.
Some context for non-Italians: Italy has a special tax regime for freelancers called "regime forfettario". It's a flat ~15% tax (5% for the first 5 years) with almost no bureaucracy, but there's a hard cap: €85k revenue/year. Go above it and you fall into the ordinary regime, where the effective tax burden (income tax + mandatory social security) can eat 45-50%+ of everything above the threshold.
Last year I had a €65k salary at an Italian company. This year I work as a contractor for a foreign company on this flat-tax regime. My contract is worth €90k + variable bonus (realistically another €10k), but I'll only invoice €85k to stay under the cap (~€5k net/month) and push the remaining invoices to next year.
Here's my problem: I'm operating at maybe 60% of my capacity, because there's zero incentive to do more. The company likes me and a raise at the May 2027 review is very likely. But under the ordinary regime, they'd have to pay me ~€120k just for me to break even with my current net (vs ~€85k now), and even more for an actual raise. That also makes me less competitive internally. First layoff round, I'm the expensive guy who gets cut.
Options I've considered:
- Relocating to a low-tax country with no revenue caps. I paid for a consultation and got the usual suspects: Cyprus, Malta, or more complex setups (US LLC + foreign residency). Anyone with first-hand experience?
- Moving to Spain, asking the company to hire me through an EOR and using the Beckham Law (~24% flat tax), then coming back to Italy after 3 years under the "impatriati" regime (a tax break for returning residents). Downside: I'd cost the company much more, and I'd have to leave everything behind.
- Opening an Italian LLC (SRL) and doing "tax optimization", which in practice means spending money on stuff I don't actually need just to lower the tax bill.
I know there's no definitive answer and it ultimately depends on what I want. But any experience or advice from people who've been through this would help me.