Private Banking and Wealth Management Today — a part of the book Lugano as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part E describes the modern Lugano private banking and wealth management market, its law and its business models after the end of banking secrecy vis-a-vis Italy.
This part belongs to Lugano as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
The Lugano Banking Landscape: Institutions, Numbers and Business Models — overview and summary
At the end of 2024 the Canton of Ticino counted 39 banks, twelve of which had their head office in the canton, and 159 bank branches. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayMeasuring a regional financial centre
A financial centre that is not a canton and has no stock exchange of its own does not appear as such in any official statistic. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayWhat the figures cannot show
Three limits of the statistics deserve emphasis because they are often overlooked in the public debate. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrom peak to plateau: banks, branches and employees since 1990
When the period covered by Part D of this book ended, the Ticino banking market was still growing. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayStabilization since 2020
From 2016 onwards the USTAT tables provide a homogeneous series. The number of banks in Ticino fell from 45 in 2016 to 39 in 2020, rose slightly to 40 in 2023 and returned to 39 in 2024. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayValue added, savings and mortgages: the domestic weight of banking
The most recent estimate of the economic contribution of the financial sector in Ticino comes from BAK Economics, which calculated in 2025 that the sector generated about one twelfth of cantonal… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySavings and mortgages: a series since 1965
The USTAT series on savings deposits and mortgage loans of banks in Ticino reaches back to 1965 and offers the longest continuous measure of the domestic banking market. Table 3 gives selected years. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayBancaStato and the domestic banks
The Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino, known since its rebranding as BancaStato, was created in 1915 as an autonomous foundation under cantonal public law in the aftermath of the banking crash of… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayRaiffeisen, PostFinance and the national retail banks
The second pillar of domestic banking in Ticino is the Raiffeisen group. The regional federation of Raiffeisen banks in Ticino and the Moesano valley of Graubünden joined the ABT in 1995. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayUBS and the end of Credit Suisse in Ticino
The big banks have been present in Ticino since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their regional history is intertwined with the history of the financial centre. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayWhat the merger means for the financial centre
For the Ticino market the end of Credit Suisse has three consequences. The first is concentration in retail and commercial banking. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe rise and end of BSI
Banca della Svizzera Italiana was founded in Lugano in 1873 and opened its main office on the Piazza della Riforma. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe sale to EFG and the integration
The decision that ended BSI as an independent bank was taken in the same announcement. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe independent Lugano banks
Beyond the State bank, the national retail banks and the big bank, the Lugano market contains a group of banks that have their head office in Ticino, are controlled by families or local shareholders… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayBanca del Sempione, PKB and Banca Zarattini
Banca del Sempione was established in 1960 as a private bank for families and investors and joined the ABT in 1969. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian and foreign banks: entries and exits
Foreign-controlled banks have been the largest category of banks in Ticino since the boom of the 1960s and 1970s. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayBPS (Suisse) and the BPER takeover
The largest remaining Swiss subsidiary of an Italian bank with its head office in Lugano is Banca Popolare di Sondrio (Suisse) SA, known as BPS (Suisse), which joined the ABT in 1999. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayBusiness models, compliance costs and consolidation
The banks described in the preceding sections can be grouped by the way they earn their income. Five business models dominate the Lugano market today, and most banks combine two or more of them. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe costs of compliance
All five models carry the costs of a regulatory framework that has grown continuously since the 1990s. A Swiss bank must be licensed by FINMA under Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayConsolidation and its limits
Consolidation has been the market's answer to these costs. The number of banks in Ticino halved between 2008 and 2020. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayPeople, training and the bankers' association
In 2023 the banks in Ticino employed 5,584 persons, equal to 5,218 full-time equivalents. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySalaries
Salaries in Ticino are lower than in the rest of Switzerland. In 2022 the median gross monthly salary in Ticino was CHF 5,301, against CHF 6,510 for Switzerland. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Associazione Bancaria Ticinese
The ABT was founded in 1920 to extend cooperation among the banks of the canton and to regulate their activities. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayLugano, Geneva and Zurich: the third centre in comparison
Comparisons between financial centres are usually made with the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), published twice a year by the London think tank Z/Yen together with the China Development… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe outlook
Several developments will shape the Lugano banking market in the coming decade, and most of them are treated in detail in Part K. The first is demography. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrom Scudo Fiscale to Automatic Exchange: Italy and the End of Banking Secrecy — overview and summary
Between 2001 and 2017 the Italian Republic offered its residents five opportunities to bring into the open the money they held abroad without having declared it: three anonymous tax shields and two… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Italian client and Swiss secrecy before 2001
At the end of the twentieth century the legal position of an Italian resident with an undeclared account in Lugano rested on two pillars of Swiss law. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe treaty framework of 1974 and 1976
The bilateral treaty relations between Switzerland and Italy in tax matters rested on two instruments of the 1970s. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe first tax shield, 2001–2003
The first scudo fiscale was enacted in the autumn of 2001 as part of a decree on the introduction of the euro. Decree-Law No. 350 of 25 September 2001, converted with amendments by Law No. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe reopening of 2002–2003
The results of the first window disappointed the government's revenue expectations. Decree-Law No. 282 of 24 December 2002, converted by Law No. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe effect on Lugano
The Lugano banks first protested against the shield and then adapted to it. NENS observes that the Swiss banks initially reacted with hostility, then opened offices in Milan in order to keep the… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe European savings agreement of 2004
The European Union adopted Council Directive 2003/48/EC of 3 June 2003 on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments in order to ensure that interest paid in one Member State to an… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Italian share
Italy was consistently the second largest recipient of retention tax after Germany. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe turn of 2009: the OECD standard, black lists and Italian pressure
The financial crisis of 2008 transformed the politics of tax havens. Governments that had rescued their banks with public money turned to the taxation of undeclared offshore wealth. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayDoubled periods and the question of retroactivity
Paragraphs 2-bis and 2-ter, added to Article 12 shortly afterwards, doubled the periods within which the tax authorities could assess the income presumed under the new rule and the penalties for… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe scudo ter of 2009–2010
The third tax shield, commonly called the scudo ter, was inserted as Article 13-bis into Decree-Law No. 78 of 1 July 2009 by the conversion law of 3 August 2009. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayOutflows and retention in Lugano
The banks of Ticino had prepared for the worst. In June 2009 a member of the Grand Council quoted forecasts that a quarter of the Italian deposits in Ticino banks could leave if Italy introduced a… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrom the white money strategy to the exit letters
After 2009 the Federal Council pursued two lines of policy that were meant to protect the private banking industry without returning to the old secrecy. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe limits of the bank's power: the Lugano judgment of 2015
The restrictions raised a question of Swiss private law: could a bank refuse to pay out the assets of a client who did not prove his tax compliance? The question came before the courts of Ticino. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayVoluntary disclosure and self-laundering, 2014–2017
The Italian voluntary disclosure ( collaborazione volontaria) was enacted by Law No. 186 of 15 December 2014, which inserted Articles 5-quater to 5-septies into Decree-Law No. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe voluntary disclosure bis
A second round, commonly called voluntary disclosure bis, was opened by Article 7 of Decree-Law No. 193 of 22 October 2016, converted by Law No. 225 of 1 December 2016. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Roadmap and the Protocol of 23 February 2015
On 23 February 2015 the head of the Federal Department of Finance, Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf, and the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Pier Carlo Padoan, signed two documents in Milan. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe group requests in the courts
Italy made use of this possibility. A group request of 23 November 2018 concerned Italian residents who had held accounts with a particular bank, had received a letter announcing restrictions for… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe black lists and the frontier workers
The promise to remove Switzerland from the black lists was fulfilled slowly. The voluntary disclosure treated Switzerland as a cooperative jurisdiction from 2015. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayAutomatic exchange of information
The automatic exchange of financial account information is the instrument that ended the economic function of banking secrecy towards Italy. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian use of the data
The Agenzia delle Entrate has integrated CRS data into its risk analysis and into its programme of "communications for the promotion of compliance" ( comunicazioni per la promozione dell'adempimento… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySwiss criminal law today: secrecy, sovereignty and tax predicate offences
Article 47 of the Banking Act remains in force and has been strengthened. In its current version it punishes with a custodial sentence of up to three years or a monetary penalty any person who… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTax offences as predicate offences to money laundering
The most important change in Swiss criminal law concerning undeclared foreign assets was the inclusion of serious tax offences among the predicate offences to money laundering. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayLegacy Italian assets and inherited accounts: a practitioner's checklist
Nine years after the start of the automatic exchange, legacy Italian assets still reach the desks of Lugano bankers, lawyers and fiduciaries. They arise in four typical situations. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayQuadro RW, IVAFE and the penalties
The second question concerns the monitoring obligations. An Italian resident who holds a Swiss account, directly or as beneficial owner of an entity, must declare it in the quadro RW of his annual… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayA checklist
For the practitioner. Before advising on a legacy Italian position in Lugano: - Identify the beneficial owner and his tax residence for every year since 2009, and check whether an Italian citizen who… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayIndependent Asset Managers, Trustees and Fiduciaries under FinIA — overview and summary
Behind the banks of Lugano stands a second financial industry that is less visible from the street and more characteristic of the place. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe fiduciari of Lugano: origins of a parabanking industry
The Italian word fiduciario has a different meaning on each side of the border at Chiasso. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe excesses of the boom years
The absence of regulation had consequences. The cantonal Commission on the Constitution and Laws quoted in 2021 a description of the Fiduciary Act of 1984 as having been adopted "as a response to the… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Ticino Fiduciary Act: a cantonal licence for a whole profession
The Grand Council of the Canton of Ticino adopted the Law on the Exercise of the Fiduciary Professions ( Legge sull'esercizio delle professioni di fiduciario, LFid) on 18 June 1984. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCategories, requirements and the personal licence
The law of 2009 distinguished three categories of fiduciario. The commercial fiduciary ( fiduciario commercialista, Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Supervisory Authority
The law of 2009 created the Supervisory Authority on the Exercise of the Fiduciary Professions ( Autorità di vigilanza sull'esercizio delle professioni di fiduciario ). Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrom cantonal to federal supervision: the turning point of 2020
When the Federal Council set 1 January 2020 as the date of entry into force of FinSA, FinIA and their ordinances, it also decided the fate of the cantonal financial fiduciary. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe consequences for the profession
The transfer had a visible effect on the institutions of the profession. The cantonal selfregulatory organisation for money laundering, the OAD FCT, had reached about 550 members at its peak and had… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFinSA and FinIA: the federal architecture
Until the end of 2019 an independent asset manager in Switzerland needed no prudential licence. Federal law reached him through two channels only. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe licensing cascade and its exceptions
Article 2 paragraph 1 FinIA lists five types of financial institution: portfolio managers, trustees, managers of collective assets, fund management companies and securities firms. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe licence of the portfolio manager: Articles 17 to 24 FinIA
A portfolio manager under FinIA is anyone who, on a commercial basis, can dispose of the assets of clients in their name and on their behalf (Art. 17 para. 1 FinIA). Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayOrganization, risk management and internal control
FinIA requires an adequate organization, risk management and internal control (Art. 21 FinIA). Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayManagers of collective assets and the de minimis thresholds
Several Lugano firms also manage investment funds, usually sub-funds of Luxembourg or Swiss umbrella funds for their own clients, or the pension assets of local pension schemes. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySupervisory organisations and the numbers of the transition
The legislature did not want FINMA to supervise some two thousand small firms directly. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe merger of 2025 and the controversy that followed
On 27 November 2025 FINMA approved the merger of FINcontrol Suisse AG and OSFIN. After the merger FINcontrol Suisse was renamed OSFINcontrol AG and OSFIN was dissolved. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayMoney laundering duties: from the OAD FCT to the reform of 2026
The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 10 October 1997 (AMLA, SR 955.0) brought the fiduciari of Lugano under federal law long before FinIA did. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe duty of truthfulness towards the self-regulatory organisation
The relationship between a fiduciary company and its self-regulatory organisation rests on the accuracy of the information that the company provides. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe external asset manager and the custodian bank
The business model of the independent asset manager rests on three contracts. The client concludes an asset management agreement with the manager, which is a contract of mandate under Articles 394… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayRetrocessions before the Federal Supreme Court
Until 2006 it was common for custodian banks to pay independent managers a share of the brokerage commissions and custody fees generated by their clients, and for fund providers to pay distribution… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayArticle 26 FinSA
FinSA has codified the case law for all financial service providers. Under Article 26 FinSA a provider may accept remuneration from third parties in connection with a financial service only if it has… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTrustees under FinIA and the Hague Trust Convention
Switzerland has no trust in its domestic law. Swiss civil law knows the fiduciary transfer ( negozio fiduciario ), the foundation and the contract of mandate, but not the division between legal… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe commercial basis and the family exception
The same criteria of commercial activity apply to trustees as to portfolio managers: gross revenue of more than CHF 50,000 a year, more than twenty contracting parties, or power of disposal over… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayMarket structure and consolidation
The statistics of the Canton of Ticino do not distinguish between licensed portfolio managers, trustees, fund distributors and other non-bank financial firms, but they show the weight and the… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe economics of a small firm
The reasons for the limited consolidation lie in the economics of the small firm. A Lugano manager with three employees, 68 clients and CHF 140 million under management earns, at an all-in fee of… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayPractical guidance: establishing, acquiring and running an asset manager in Lugano
A new portfolio manager in Lugano must obtain its FINMA licence before it starts its activity. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayGovernance in a small firm
The governance of a three-person firm is necessarily lean, and FinIA accepts this within limits. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayServing Italian Clients from Switzerland: Market Access and Cross-Border Services — overview and summary
A relationship manager in Lugano who telephones a client in Varese, sends him a new fund factsheet or takes the train to Milan to discuss a Lombard loan performs an act that two legal orders claim to… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayWhere a cross-border financial service takes place
Financial regulation in Europe is territorial in principle and functional in application. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrom tolerance to enforcement
For about half a century the question of market access was overshadowed by banking secrecy. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe European framework for third-country firms
MiFID II, adopted on 15 May 2014 and applicable from 3 January 2018, was the first European instrument to address firms from third countries in some detail. It did so in two tiers. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySwitzerland and the politics of equivalence
The absence of an equivalence decision for Swiss investment firms has political causes. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItaly's implementation: Articles 28 and 29-ter TUF
Italian law distinguishes between third-country banks and third-country firms other than banks, and it assigns each category to a different authority. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe branch requirement for retail and professional clients
Article 28 paragraph 3 and Article 29-ter paragraph 3 TUF contain the decisive rule. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayBanking services: the TUB and the CRD VI branch requirement
Investment services are only part of what a Lugano bank provides to an Italian client. The relationship usually begins with an account, which in legal terms is the acceptance of a deposit. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItaly's transposition: Legislative Decree No. 208 of 2025
Italy transposed CRD VI by Legislative Decree No. 208 of 31 December 2025, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale No. 5 of 8 January 2026. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayReverse solicitation, marketing and the distribution of funds
Reverse solicitation is the legal space in which most of Lugano's business with Italian private clients now takes place. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayInherited relationships and the next generation
The exemption raises particular questions for the type of client that dominates Lugano's books. Many Italian relationships are decades old. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFunds: AIFMD and the TUF
The marketing of funds follows its own regime. A Swiss collective investment scheme is neither an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) under Directive 2009/65/EC… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySanctions: abusive activity, tax and corporate liability
The central sanction for a Swiss provider who serves Italian clients without authorization is criminal. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayAdministrative sanctions and the supervisor's tools
Alongside the criminal law the TUF and the TUB provide administrative sanctions, imposed by CONSOB or the Banca d'Italia, for breaches of the rules on authorization and conduct. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe tax dimension: the hidden permanent establishment
The most expensive sanction in recent practice has been fiscal. Under Article 162 of the Consolidated Income Tax Act ( Testo unico delle imposte sui redditi, TUIR) and Article 5 of the Swiss-Italian… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe enforcement record: Italian investigations of Swiss banks and bankers
The first visible sign that Italy would enforce its rules against Swiss banks came during the third tax amnesty, the scudo fiscale of 2009, which Chapter E.II describes. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCredit Suisse and the insurance wrappers, 2016
In March 2016 the public prosecutor's office in Milan opened an investigation into Credit Suisse concerning the alleged use of insurance policies to conceal the assets of Italian clients from the… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Swiss side: FINMA, country manuals and the FinSA
Swiss supervisory law does not leave the compliance of Swiss banks with foreign law to the foreign state. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTravel rules for relationship managers
The most practical part of the country manual is the travel policy. Before the end of banking secrecy, many Lugano relationship managers travelled to Italy regularly to see clients, and some of them… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe inverse case: Article 28 FinSA and the reciprocity clause
Swiss law treats foreign providers who serve clients in Switzerland more openly than Italy treats Swiss providers. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFrontalieri, branches and alternative structures
A distinctive feature of Lugano banking is that many of the relationship managers who serve Italian clients are themselves Italian residents. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian branches and subsidiaries of Swiss banks
The direct answer to the branch requirement is a branch, and the large Swiss groups have built Italian establishments. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe politics of market access: from the Roadmap to the Switzerland–EU package
On 23 February 2015 Switzerland and Italy signed in Milan a Roadmap on fiscal and financial matters, together with the Protocol amending the double taxation convention. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Switzerland–EU package and financial services
At the European level, the decisive development of the period was the package of agreements between Switzerland and the European Union, often called the Bilaterals III. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayA practitioner's checklist for Italian relationships
The first task in reviewing a book of Italian clients is classification. Each relationship must be assigned to one of the categories that Italian and European law distinguish, because the category… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayConduct rules for the relationship manager
The relationship manager is the person most exposed to Italian criminal law. His conduct must therefore be governed by clear and enforced rules. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian Families, Succession and Residence: Trusts, Foundations and Lump-Sum Taxation — overview and summary
For most of the twentieth century the Italian family that banked in Lugano asked its adviser for one thing above all: that the account should remain invisible to the Italian state. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian families as clients of the Lugano centre
The modern Lugano private banking market was built on Italian deposits, many of them undeclared. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThree legal orders around one family
In practice three bodies of law determine the outcome of a cross-border Italian succession. The first is Italian substantive law. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian succession law and the reserved share
Italian succession law belongs to the Roman and French tradition of forced heirship. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe prohibition of agreements on future successions
The second feature of Italian succession law that shapes planning is the prohibition of agreements on succession. Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayReform proposals and the Swiss comparison
Italian scholars and notaries have long argued that the system is too rigid for modern families and businesses. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayItalian inheritance and gift tax after the reform of 2024
By European standards Italy taxes inheritances within the family lightly. After its abolition in 2001 the tax was reintroduced in 2006 with high allowances and low rates, in a structure that has… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayDouble taxation without a treaty
Since there is no Swiss-Italian treaty on inheritance taxes, double taxation is avoided only by unilateral rules. Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayExemptions for business transfers
The most important exemption for entrepreneurial families is that for the transfer of businesses and shareholdings to descendants and to the spouse. Under Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCross-border succession: the European Regulation and the revised PILA
Since 17 August 2015 Italian courts and notaries have determined the law applicable to a succession under Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 (the… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Swiss rules after 1 January 2025
Swiss private international law of succession is contained in Art. 86 to 96 PILA. These provisions were revised by an amending act of 22 December 2023, which the Federal Council brought into force on… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTypical constellations for Italians in Ticino
The first typical case is that of an Italian national who has moved to Lugano and wishes his or her estate to be governed by Swiss law. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTrusts between Italian and Swiss law
Neither Italy nor Switzerland has a domestic law of trusts in the common law sense. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Italian income tax treatment of trusts
Italian income tax law has treated trusts as taxpayers since the Budget Act for 2007. Under Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayIndirect taxes and the reform of 2024
The inheritance and gift tax treatment of trusts was for years one of the most contested areas of Italian tax law. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayFoundations: Swiss restrictions and the Liechtenstein alternative
Families who want a permanent vehicle under a civil law tradition often ask for a foundation. Swiss law offers one, but with restrictions that have made it unattractive for most wealth planning. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe Liechtenstein foundation
The Liechtenstein foundation is the classical alternative. It is governed by Art. 552 ff. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayMoving to Ticino: permits and the Italian residence test
For an Italian national the right to live in Ticino follows from the Agreement of 21 June 1999 between Switzerland and the European Community and its member states on the free movement of persons… Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodaySwitzerland and the Italian blacklist
Until 2023 a further rule made the move to Switzerland particularly difficult. Under Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayTicino's taxes on wealthy residents
Chapter B.II has explained the federal framework of taxation according to expenditure ( imposizione secondo il dispendio ). It covered the conditions of Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe wealth tax
Ticino levies a progressive cantonal wealth tax on net wealth, to which the communes add their own share through their communal multiplier. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe reverse flow: Italy's regimes for new residents
For most of the twentieth century wealth moved from Italy to Ticino. Since 2017 Italy has competed for the same clients with its own regime for wealthy immigrants. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayThe impatriate regime
The second Italian instrument targets people who work. With effect from 2024 Legislative Decree No 209 of 27 December 2023 replaced the earlier regime for impatriate workers of Art. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCase studies and a practitioner's checklist
The following cases are hypothetical and anonymised. They combine features that recur in practice and are intended to show how the rules described in this chapter interact. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCase 2: the widow in Milan with a trust
B, an Italian resident living in Milan, settled a discretionary trust governed by Jersey law with a Lugano trustee twenty years ago, with assets held at a Lugano bank. Read more Lugano · Private Banking and Wealth Management TodayCase 4: the family that returns to Milan
D, an Italian national, has lived in Lugano for twelve years under taxation according to expenditure. Her investment income is almost entirely from non-Italian sources. Read more