Italian fiscal code card

The Italian fiscal code card, officially known as Italy's Codice Fiscale, is the tax code card in Italy; similar to a Social Security Number (SSN) card in the United States. The tax code in Italy is an alphanumeric code of 16 characters. The card serves to identify, unambiguously for tax purposes, individuals residing in Italy irrespective of residency status.

The number is issued by the Italian tax office. Each person in the past was handed a plastic card with a magnetic strip, bearing the tax code as well as the surname, given name(s), sex, place and province of birth (or country of birth if foreign), date of birth and date of issue. Today, the tax or fiscal code card has been replaced by a combined Italian health insurance card for qualifying residents which shows an expiration date.

Problems with the tax code

Place of birth

The coding of the states does not take into account the historical changes that have occurred. Today, there are problems with a tax code generated for a person whose origin lies in the former Soviet republics: for example, people born in the former Soviet Union in Kiev may have their code attributed to the Ukraine or Russia. The same problem occurs for those born in the past in one of the 2 divisions of Germany, who had different codes at the time, and now they share one.

The coding of birth location instead may also take account of historical changes, but is inconsistent. It may happen that a municipality is deleted and merged with a neighboring municipality or a new municipality may be created. An exception is that some people in the seventies, although born in Italian territory, were given a code of a foreign land, because the town had become foreign territory after the Second World War.

Name changes

Taxpayers who change their last name or the name during their life also have to update their tax code. The problem, initially limited, is becoming increasingly evident with foreign immigrants, many, in obtaining Italian citizenship, are forced to change their name because the rules of attribution of Italian surnames are different from their home country. ( For example, citizens of South American nations acquire at birth the double surname of the father and mother, losing it when they become Italian citizens).

Polluted databases

In various databases maintained by public and private entities, there is recorded information associated with the tax code that may be inaccurate due to the information being accurate at the time in which it was entered, but later changing (such as in the case of a name change).

Privacy

The tax code of a citizen reveals information on the person's name, their date of birth and the town of birth, which is a privacy concern. This information is not strictly necessary for tax purposes, however, a citizen is forced to reveal the information.

Recalculate your tax code

On the internet there are several web sites and software packages, that allow you to calculate your tax code: just search for "codice fiscale calculation" on any search engine. It should be noted, however, that the only official tax code is one provided by the tax office, which handles cases of identical tax codes, an arbitrary changing of a tax code, as well as cases where a code is incorrect, but still valid (because provided by the tax office).

References

• National identification number
• Value added tax identification number
• Information privacy

External links

• Codice fiscale generator and personal data extractor from the codice fiscale Unofficial tool from miocodicefiscale.com
• Codice Fiscale Generator Generate and validate the Italian tax identification code - nonsoloCAP.it
• Calculate your Italian fiscal code
• Health card contains the fiscal code (from the tax office web site)
• D.M. 23/12/76
• Fiscal code identification of individuals (from the tax office web site)
• Fiscal code and health card(from the tax office web site)