IB with C Permit

Investing / Brokers
1

Hi ! I am in the process of opening a IB account for my girlfriend who is italian with a C Permit living in Switzerland.

During the application process IB refused the C permit as a valid ID. I then uploaded her italian passeport which was accepted. However in order to finalise the process they request a tax ID from Italy (codice fiscale) for some regulations (MiFiR).

She has no business paying taxes in Italy does this means she will be taxed there on capital gains ? That seems unlikely but I prefer to ask. I contacted customer support and told them that I can provide the Swiss Tax identification since she pays taxes in Switzerland, but it was a disappointing experience the representative couldn’t help…

I am pretty sure people on this forum are in the same situation living in Switzerland with C permit. Were you able and I register with your c Permit or Swiss driving license? Are you registered with your Swiss tax ID or your home country tax Id ? What are the implications?

Thank you for your help

1 Like
2

Probably something went wrong in the process. (Are you opening a uk account?)

1 Like
3

Because IT IS NOT an ID but a residence permit.

4 Likes
4

It seems a UK account, is there a difference? I checked and I also have a UK account (interactive broker.co.uk).

5

Maybe, that’s why I uploaded the Italian passeport afterwards. This is why I am curious what was experience for people in similar situations

6

Can’t you just provide her AVS number - I assume your GF is deregistered from Italy (AIRE) ?

7

Exactly, I want to provide the AVS number but they ask for the Italian codice fiscale instead.

8

Could it be that you entered the Italian residence address in the form instead of Swiss ?

1 Like
9

No, I entered the Swiss one as there is no italian. By reading your message, it seems you did not face the same problem.

10

Yeah I use IBKR since few years.
Didn’t have this issue

11

I’m also Italian with a C permit and had the same “issue”. IB doesn’t understand that you can have a nationality from a country where you never worked/lived before. That’s not an actual problem, because the only thing that matters is the residency. The support wasn’t able to help me and it was impossible to register myself with a Swiss residency and Italian nationality. I registered myself at the end with a swiss nationality and commented my situation. It was quietly approved and I haven’t heard anything since then. I had no problem with filing taxes or getting the withholding tax back.

As a side-note: Swiss residents will get a UK account. That’s correct and actually the whole point of creating an IB account. EU accounts cannot buy US ETFs (VOO, VT) because the PRIIPs / KIID ruling. We only have access through IB UK.

PS: Your GF doesn’t have an Italian tax number and cannot get one if she never worked in Italy. IB only cares about the tax number of the country you reside and pay taxes in.

5 Likes
12

This is very odd as the application form allowed this a few years ago, as far as I can tell. There was an “Identification” section where you specified the citizenship and passport/ID number and then there was a “Tex Residency” section with a separate country selection, followed by the TIN field. It’s certainly possible that they made the form worse, though.

2 Likes
13

Ah the old “pay peanuts get monkeys”.

That said I registered with IBKR as resident and taxpayer in CH with my Greek passport and nationality/citizenship and didn’t have any such issue.

14

You won’t have a problem, folks at Ibkr know the difference between fiscal residence and nationality. Don’t provide inexact information such as the wrong nationality, this might pose a problem later on. Anyone with Italian citizenship has a codice fiscale, whether they know it or not. I gave them my codice fiscale when asked, and that’s it. I know they consider me a Swiss resident because I can buy non-UCITS ETFs and benefit from US-CH tax treaties. . Additionally, Ibkr does not care about where you report taxes, it’s your responsibility to report any taxable amount to the country where you have your fiscal residence.

1 Like