The article is published in the IBFD European Taxation and written by Antonio Della Carità and Elio Andrea Palmitessa (founder and author of taxingArtSports.com). It provides insights about (i) the protection of image rights under Italian Civil Law, (ii) qualification of income derived from the exploitation of image rights for Italian tax purposes and (iii) territoriality of income derived from the exploitation of image rights applied to HNWIs under the special regime for new Italian residents

Remuneration deriving from the exploitation of image rights constitutes a significant portion of earnings for artistes and sportspersons. For Italian tax purposes, the applicable tax treatment does not appear to be straightforward, above all when the underlying contractual relationship qualifies the remuneration received as miscellaneous income while the place where the image is economically exploited and the countries of residence of the payor and the payee are characterized by crossborder elements that are unrelated to each other.

European Taxation 2020 (Volume 60), No. 1.